Explore Harrodsburg's 250th Anniversary Marker Tour

Curated by the staff of the Kentucky Historical Society

In commemoration of the 250th anniversary of Harrodsburg's founding in 1774, this tour highlights the history of the town and surrounding sites in Mercer County. The tour includes all of the Historical Markers within Mercer County, providing digital users and visitors to the area with locally grounded narratives that connect the county and Harrodsburg to wider stories about Kentucky, its past, and its future.

Marker #1343, "Boone's Cave"

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 runs…

Marker #1877: "James Harrod"

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 in…

Marker 1637: "Original Fort Harrod Site"

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…

Marker #1449, "the Big Spring"

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 James…

Marker #1530 "Wilderness Revival"

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…

Marker #1498, "New Providence" [Presbyterian Church]

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at the First Continental Congress and sent a petition to King George III, asking for the Intolerable Acts to be repealed.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…

Marker #928, "McAfee Station / Pioneer Teacher, 1779"

McAfee Station was established by brothers Robert, James Jr., and George McAfee, along with James McCoun, Jr. and Samuel Adams. Known as the McAfee Company, this band of explorers left Virginia for Kentucky on May 10, 1773. The Company, like many…

Marker #929, "McAfee Station / Pioneer Teacher, 1779"

McAfee Station was established by brothers Robert, James Jr., and George McAfee, along with James McCoun, Jr. and Samuel Adams. Known as the McAfee Company, this band of explorers left Virginia for Kentucky on May 10, 1773. The Company, like many…

Marker #1258 "Mercer County/County Named"

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…

Marker #1083, "Mercer County before Kentucky Became a State"

The names of two women are listed among the 1776 “Mercer County FIRSTS [sic] in Kentucky”: Jane Coomes and Ann[e] [Pogue] McGinty. The contributions of both women to the history of Anglo-American settlement in frontier Kentucky are worthy of further…

Marker #1751, "Warwick / Oregon"

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…

Marker #141, "Old Mud Meeting House"

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…

Marker 185: "Morgan Row"

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 is…

Shaker Village at Pleasant Hill

Historical Marker #1481 in Mercer County recognizes the Shaker Village at Pleasant Hill. The Society of Believers, more commonly known as the Shakers, immigrated to America from England in 1774 to avoid religious persecution. By the early…

Marker #1817, "Shaker Ferry Road / Shaker Landing"

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…

Marker #1874: "Gabriel Slaughter, 1767-1830"

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…

Marker #2287, "Greenville Springs"

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 resorts…

Marker #551 "Harrodsburg Springs" and #1297 "Graham Springs"

While the waters at the Springs claimed to possess curative properties for visitors seeking cure or relief from a variety of illnesses, the Springs were also marketed as a social destination for the wealthy and elite. Like the neighboring Greenville…

Marker 1679: "Burgin Christian Church"

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…

Marker #1335 "Early Gun Shop Site"

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 Harrodsburg…

Marker #2082 "Mt. Pleasant Presbyterian Church"

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…

Marker #1325, "Neighbors - Governors / Mercer Governors"

Beriah Magoffin was born on April 15, 1815, in Harrodsburg to Beriah Magoffin, Sr. and Jane (McAfee) Magoffin. The junior Magoffin graduated from Centre College in 1835, studied law at the Transylvania University Law School, and briefly practiced as…

Marker #627, "Morgan's Men Here"

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…

Marker #539 “A General’s Prayer”

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 fought…

An Early Derby Winner/Another Derby Winner

Historical Marker #1295 in Harrodsburg notes the Mercer County origins of two Kentucky Derby winners: Leonatus in 1883 and George Smith in 1916. Leonatus, winner of the ninth Kentucky Derby (1883) was noted for his stamina and durability. He was…

Marker #1173, "Beaumont College, 1895-1915"

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 colonists…

Marker #2050, "West Side School"

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…

Marker #2044 Colonel George Morgan Chinn, USMC

George Morgan Chinn was born in Harrodsburg, Kentucky, in 1902, and attended Braxton “Tech,” a one-room schoolhouse. He forewent high school and enrolled at Millersburg Military Institute outside of Lexington. He graduated at the age of 19 in 1920.…
This tour is a proud supporter of Harrodsburg's 250th anniversary and the efforts of Kentuckians within and beyond the county who collect, preserve, and share the stories of Mercer County.