STATE VICE-PRESIDENT FOR CALIFORNIA, AND THREE OTHER MEMBERS OF THE SOCIETY.
EARLY IRISH SETTLERS IN KENTUCKY.
BY EDWARD FITZPATRICK,[[5]] LOUISVILLE, KY.
Kentucky was admitted to the Union as a state June 1, 1792, but long before that time Irishmen had invaded the “Dark and Bloody Ground.” Indeed, when Daniel Boone took time to write a little history for future generations, on one occasion, by carving in the bark of a tree with his jack-knife: “Here D. Boone Cilled a Bar,” it is not improbable that an Irishman was within speaking distance.
Simon Kenton, the companion of Boone, and who came to Kentucky in 1771, was of Irish parentage. His father was born in County Donegal. Another Irish companion was Michael Stoner. Kenton’s life was even more romantic than Boone’s. While yet a minor he fled from his state because he believed he had killed a rival for the hand of a fair Virginia damsel, and, coming to the wilds of Kentucky, assumed the name of Simon Butler. To recount his many deeds of personal bravery and privation would fill a volume. Indeed, it was asserted by many that he was the greatest Indian fighter the country ever produced.
In 1782, hearing that the man he had struck down with his fist was still alive, he resumed his name, and in 1795 served as major under Gen. Anthony Wayne. He founded Kenton’s Station and Maysville, and planted the first corn raised in the state north of Kentucky river. Michael Stoner, one of his companions, and Thomas Kennedy, another Irishman, built a cabin and made some improvements on Stoner’s fork of Licking river, in Bourbon county, in 1774. Future generations are indebted to men of Irish blood for many of the early settlements of this state, made under so much difficulty, and it would be impossible to fully treat the subject in one paper or in a dozen, so romantic are many of the characters.
Kentucky was only a colony or county of Virginia up to 1791, and the latter state exercised full control over its lands until Gen. George Rogers Clark disputed this right shortly before the state was admitted to the Union. The records show that with the surveying parties sent out by the state of Virginia to this territory were many men bearing Irish names, not “Scotch-Irish,” but plain Irish.
Col. George Croghan, an Irishman, writing in his journal June 1, 1765, says: “We arrived within a mile of the falls of the Ohio (Louisville) where we encamped after coming 50 miles this day.” This was even before Boone’s time. Colonel Croghan was a connection by marriage of Gen. George Rogers Clark, who reduced the British possessions in the entire Northwest and made it first possible for the United States, instead of England, to acquire this territory. If General Clark was not an Irishman himself, his records show that he had many Irishmen with him as soldiers. His sister married William Croghan.
The first survey made of Louisville was in 1773 by Capt. Thomas Bullitt; his associates were John Fitzpatrick, James, George and Robert McAfee. Dr. John Connolly owned two thousand acres of land in Louisville in 1773. Col. John Campbell, a native of Ireland and a resident of Louisville about this time, was afterward a member of the first state constitutional convention, held in Danville in 1797.
Colonel Campbell was an Irish Presbyterian and proud that he was Irish. He never mentioned once in any of his letters or speeches that he was “Scotch-Irish,” though he made many speeches and wrote many letters. He was speaker of the Kentucky house of representatives and afterward a member of congress. He was often a delegate to the Presbyterian Synods in Kentucky and was always spoken of as an Irishman, without any prefix, though he was born in the province of Ulster. Colonel Campbell was a pioneer of whom the Irish might well feel proud. He was an intense patriot, and being a large landowner, sent for many of his countrymen to come to Louisville, and this was another cause for swelling the early Irish immigration to Kentucky.