|
The Chapline Farm For these adventurers, the lots in town were only a bonus. Most everyone in the company intended to find a good place to lay a 400 acre preemption claim. They believed such a claim would be established by cutting down trees and starting the construction of a cabin. Thus, most of the men left this camp and began to explore the countryside looking for sites to make land claims. Several of Harrod's company had been hired to make preemption improvements for people who had stayed at home. Harrod established a claim at Boiling Springs, but towards the end of 1774 Indian raids became frequent along the Kentucky frontier and the group decided to flee for their lives. |
||
|
Determined to reclaim their settlement, Harrod returned to Harrodsburg in 1775 leading a party of 40 to 50 men to the cabins abandoned the previous year. Flooding had ruined the structures built the previous summer. These were abandoned and the decision was made to construct a log fort on a hill west of the Big Spring. The fort would not only be safe from flooding, but also would offer protection to the settlers. It became an important haven to the pioneers of Kentucky because, as the American Revolution on the eastern seaboard intensified, the British encouraged the Indians to raid Kentucky's settlements. Harrodsburg is thus credited with being Kentucky's first permanent settlement, although scattered cabins and half-camps had been built in eastern and central Kentucky well before 1775.
|
||
|
Harrod had not been in Kentucky very long until another group arrived, this party being under the leadership of Colonel Thomas Slaughter. These men had been guided to the new settlements by Valentine Harmon. Although Harrod and Slaughter were friendly to each other, they were warm advocates and champions for two different parties that numbered about 50 men on each side. A schism developed between these two groups based upon land claims. Harrod's men, being the first to arrive, had laid claim to choice land tracts. However, Slaughter’s men accused Harrod’s men of riding through the country marking every piece of land they thought proper and building make-shift structures to make their claims legal. By that means, Harrod’s men had secured every good spring in an area of 20 miles in length and almost as broad. Without the right to water, Slaughter’s men were deprived of a very essential inducement to their settling in the area.
|
||
| < Previous | Read More > | |
