Kentucky History

Although inhabited by Native Americans in prehistoric times, when explorers and settlers began entering Kentucky in the mid-1700s, there were no major Native American settlements in the region.[29] Instead, the country was used as hunting grounds by Shawnees from the north and Cherokees from the south. Much of what is now Kentucky was purchased from Native Americans in the treaties of Fort Stanwix (1768) and Sycamore Shoals (1775).[30] Thereafter, Kentucky grew rapidly as the first settlements west of the Appalachian Mountains were founded, with settlers (primarily from Virginia, North Carolina, and Pennsylvania) entering the region via the Cumberland Gap and the Ohio River. The most famous of these early explorers and settlers was Daniel Boone, traditionally considered one of the founders of the state.[31] Shawnees north of the Ohio River, however, were unhappy about the settlement of Kentucky, and allied themselves with the British in the American Revolutionary War (1775–1783).[32] Kentucky was a battleground during the war; the Battle of Blue Licks, one of the last major battles of the Revolution, was fought in Kentucky.[33]

After the American Revolution, the counties of Virginia beyond the Appalachian Mountains became known as Kentucky County.[34] Eventually, the residents of Kentucky County petitioned for a separation from Virginia. Ten constitutional conventions were held in the Constitution Square Courthouse in Danville between 1784 and 1792. In 1790, Kentucky's delegates accepted Virginia's terms of separation, and a state constitution was drafted at the final convention in April 1792. On June 1, 1792, Kentucky became the fifteenth state to be admitted to the union and Isaac Shelby, a military veteran from Virginia, was elected the first Governor of the Commonwealth of Kentucky.[35]

Kentucky was a border state during the American Civil War.[36] Although frequently described as never having seceded, a group of Kentucky soldiers stationed at Russellville did pass an Ordinance of Secession under the moniker "Convention of the People of Kentucky" on November 20, 1861[37], establishing a Confederate government for the state with its capital in Bowling Green.[38] Though Kentucky was represented by the central star on the Confederate battle flag.[39], the legitimacy of the Russellville Convention may well be questioned, as only a year earlier, philosopher Karl Marx records in a letter to Friedrich Engels that the result of a vote deciding how Kentucky would be represented at a convention of the border states was "100,000 for the Union ticket, only a few thousand for secession."[40] Kentucky officially remained "neutral" throughout the war due to Union sympathies of many of the Commonwealth's citizens. Even today, however, Confederate Memorial Day is observed by some in Kentucky on Jefferson Davis' birthday, June 3.[41]

On January 30, 1900, Governor William Goebel was mortally wounded by an assailant while in the process of contesting the election of 1899, initially assumed to be won by William S. Taylor. For several months, J. C. W. Beckham, Goebel's running mate, and Taylor fought over who was the real governor until the Supreme Court of the United States decided in May that Beckham was the rightful governor. Taylor fled to Indiana and was later indicted as a co-conspirator in Goebel's assassination. Goebel remains the only governor of a U.S. state to have been assassinated while in office.[42]

Daniel Boone Escorting Settlers through the Cumberland Gap (George Caleb Bingham, oil on canvas, 1851–52).

Both Abraham Lincoln and Jefferson Davis were born in Kentucky.

Designed by the Washington Monument's architect Robert Mills in 1845, the U.S. Marine Hospital in Louisville is considered the best remaining antebellum hospital in the United States