page_title: History of Kentucky
section_title: Establishment of Harrod's Town
hierarchical_section_title: History of Kentucky / Early period of European settlement / Establishment of Harrod's Town
context_page_description: The prehistory and history of Kentucky spans thousands of years, and has been influenced by the state's diverse geography and central location. It is not known exactly when the first humans arrived in what is now Kentucky. Around 1800 BCE, a gradual transition began from a hunter-gatherer economy to agriculturalism. Around 900 CE, a Mississippian culture took root in western and central Kentucky; by contrast, a Fort Ancient culture appeared in eastern Kentucky. While the two had many similarities, the distinctive ceremonial earthwork mounds constructed in the former's centers were not part of the culture of the latter.
  The first permanent European-American settlement, Harrod's Town, was established in 1774. Kentucky was the 15th U.S. state, admitted to the Union on June 1, 1792, after the American Revolutionary War. Kentucky was initially neutral in the American Civil War, but joined the Union side after a Confederate invasion in 1861. The state remained under Union control for most of the war.
context_section_description: Before 1750, Kentucky was populated nearly exclusively by Cherokee, Chickasaw, Shawnee, Yuchi, Mosopelea, and several other tribes of Native Americans. Early British exploration of the area that would become Kentucky was made in 1750 by a scouting party led by Dr. Thomas Walker, and in 1751 by Christopher Gist for the Ohio Company.
  Any French claims to Kentucky were lost after the British defeated them in the French and Indian War and signed the Treaty of Paris (1763) on February 10, 1763. The Iroquois claim to much of what is now Kentucky was purchased by the British in the Treaty of Fort Stanwix on November 5, 1768.  By 1774 only a few bands of Indians were permanently resident south of the Ohio River.  The major tribes—based north of the river—agreed not to hunt south of it.
  In 1774, Harrod's Town became the first white permanent settlement in Kentucky. Harrod's Town, named after James Harrod, was founded by the order of the British royal Governor of Virginia John Murray, the 4th Earl of Dunmore. James Harrod led an expedition to survey the bounds of land promised by the British crown to soldiers who served in the French and Indian War. Leaving from Fort Redstone, Harrod and 37 men traveled down the Monongahela and Ohio Rivers to the mouth of the Kentucky River, eventually crossing Salt River into what is today Mercer County, Kentucky. On June 16, 1774, the men established the first pioneer settlement in Kentucky, Harrod's Town. The men divided the land amongst them; Harrod chose an area about six miles (9.7 km) from the settlement proper, which he named Boiling Springs.
  On July 8, 1774, Shawnee attacked a small party of Harrod's in the Fontainbleau area, killing two men. The others escaped to the camp, some 3 miles (4.8 km) away.
  Just as Harrod's men had completed the settlement's first structures, Dunmore dispatched Daniel Boone to call them back from the frontier and into military service against some bands of Shawnee and Mingo in Lord Dunmore's War. Harrod enlisted in the militia, but arrived too late to participate in the war's only major battle – the Battle of Point Pleasant. His men arrived at the battle site at midnight on October 10, the day the fighting ended. The Treaty of Camp Charlotte, signed by Shawnee Chief Cornstalk, which concluded Lord Dunmore's War, ceded to Royal Virginia the Shawnee claims to all lands south of the Ohio River (today's states of Kentucky and West Virginia). The Shawnee were also obligated in the Treaty of Camp Charlotte to return all white captives and stop attacking barges of immigrants traveling on the Ohio River. On March 8, 1775, Harrod led a group of settlers back to Harrodstown to stay.
  The defeat of the Shawnee in Lord Dunmore's War in 1774 emboldened land speculators in North Carolina, who believed much of what is now Kentucky and Tennessee would soon be under British control. One such speculator, Richard Henderson (1734–1785), learned from his friend Daniel Boone that the Cherokee were interested in selling a large part of their land on the Trans-Appalachian frontier, and Henderson quickly set up negotiations with Cherokee leaders. Between March 14 and 17, 1775, Henderson, Boone, and several associates met at Sycamore Shoals with Cherokee leaders Attakullakulla, Oconastota, Willanawaw, Doublehead and Dragging Canoe. The Treaty of Sycamore Shoals, the "Transylvania Purchase", was not recognized by Dragging Canoe who sought unsuccessfully to reject Henderson's purchase of tribal lands outside the Donelson line, and departed the conference vowing to turn the lands "dark and bloody" if settlers attempted to settle upon them. The rest of the negotiations went fairly smoothly, however, and the Treaty of Sycamore Shoals was signed on March 17, 1775. At the same conference, the Watauga and Nolichucky settlers negotiated similar purchases for their lands.
caption: James Pierce Barton Kentucky Landscape
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