James Harrod, Another Kentucky Legend

Two years before Daniel Boone came to the bluegrass of central Kentucky, a 25 year old Pennsylvanian, James Harrod, explored the forests edging the Kentucky River.  This six footer followed wide buffalo traces and found a lake-sized spring and creek.  This site became Kentucky's first town.

Seven years later, he returned by canoe with 32 men down the Monongahela and Ohio River, and up the Kentucky River.  They cleared a wide path along the creek, called it Water Creek, lined it with 1/2 acre allotments and built five cabins along it with 27 more within 10 miles.  The men called it Harrodsburg, drew lots for land ownership and staked claims to all the springs within 20 square miles.  Harrod was to own 2818 acres and a farmhouse large enough to accommodate 65 guests at one time.

Indian threat came quickly, and Daniel Boone showed up to give them warning.  Harrod and his men left to take part in putting down a Shawnee uprising, but returned the following year to Harrodsburg.  Families and some slaves joined the settlement and they raised a fort for defense.

In 1777,  "The Year of the Bloody Sevens",  the Shawnee raids reached a peak.  So many whites died that the survivors left their crops and stations, crammed into the fort, hungry and short of gunpowder and lead for making bullets.  Harrod saved them all by sneaking past the Indian forces with 30 men to retrieve five large buried caches of gunpowder.

When it was practical, Harrod liked to disappear on long, lone hunting trips, surveying lands and spying on Indian camps.  He was superbly skilled at woodcraft, a rugged individual who was fond of food and drink and gambling as well.  Unlike most of his fellow wilderness men, he was literate.  He founded Harrods Latin School and was elected to the Virginia legislature in 1779 and 1784. 

In 1791, Harrod left home to search for silver mines but never returned.  His family thought he was killed by another settler over a land claim but more probable was that the Indians finally got him.  No one knows for sure so this legend's demise is indeed a "legend". 

Next time...The Western American Revolution
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Today in Pioneer History:  On September 28, 1542, the Spanish explorer Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo discovers San Diego Bay while searching for the Strait of Anian, a mythical all-water route across North America.