{{Short description|Former county in Virginia, United States}} {{Coord|37|37||N|83|27||W|display=title}} {{Redirect|Kentucky County|a list of counties in the state of Kentucky|List of counties in Kentucky}} {{Redirect|District of Kentucky|the former U.S. district court with this name|United States District Court for the District of Kentucky}} {{Use American English|date=January 2026}} {{Use mdy dates|date=April 2025}} [[File:Kentucky County, Virginia 1776.png|thumb|upright=1.15|Kentucky County, 1776–1780, as established by the [[Virginia General Assembly]].<ref>The area west of the Tennessee (lower left) later called the Jackson Purchase had been ceded by Virginia to the Chickasaw in the Treaty of Fort Stanwix (1768).</ref>]]
'''Kentucky County''', also known as '''Kentucke County''' and the '''District of Kentucky''', was the westernmost county in the [[Virginia|commonwealth of Virginia]] from 1776 until it was admitted to the [[United States|Union]] as the 15th [[U.S. state|state]] in 1792.<ref name="apps.sos.ky.gov">{{cite web|url=http://apps.sos.ky.gov/land/nonmilitary/coformations/countysearch1.asp?searchby=NEW%20COUNTY&searchstrg=Kentucky|title=Kentucky: Secretary of State - Land Office - Kentucky County Formations|access-date=November 9, 2016|archive-date=June 25, 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200625163836/http://apps.sos.ky.gov/land/nonmilitary/coformations/countysearch1.asp?searchby=NEW%20COUNTY&searchstrg=Kentucky|url-status=dead}}</ref>
The name of the county was taken from a Native American place name that came to be associated with a river in east central Kentucky, and gave the [[Kentucky River]] its name and eventually the U.S. state of [[Kentucky]]. During the almost four years of Kentucky County's existence, its [[County seat|seat of government]] was Harrodstown (then also known as Oldtown, later renamed [[Harrodsburg, Kentucky|Harrodsburg]]).<ref name='kleber'>{{cite book | last = Kleber | first = John E. | title = The Kentucky Encyclopedia | publisher = The University Press of Kentucky | year = 1992 | location = Lexington KY | isbn = 0-8131-1772-0 }}</ref>
The entire existence of Kentucky County was in the context of the [[Western theater of the American Revolutionary War]]. Except for the old French settlements in Illinois country, Kentucky was the western theater, and several major battles of the War occurred during its existence including the [[siege of Boonesborough]], [[Stanford, Kentucky|siege of Logan's Fort]], and [[Bird's invasion of Kentucky]]. Other events include the invalidation of [[Transylvania Colony]] and the [[Thomas Walker (explorer)#Pioneer and explorer|survey of Walker's Line]], Kentucky's southern boundary. The [[Cherokee–American wars|Cherokee-American wars]] were initiated in Kentucky in 1776 by disgruntled Cherokee. General [[George Rogers Clark]] conducted his infamous [[Illinois campaign|Illinois Campaign]] from his base at the Falls of the Ohio in 1778–79. During its 4 years, the population of Kentucky County rose from about 300 to a little less than 1000 in 1780.
In the Land Act of May 3, 1779, the [[Virginia General Assembly]] allocated the Military District in Kentucky County. What had been necessity became policy: Virginian Revolutionary War veterans as well as veterans from the [[French and Indian War]] and [[Lord Dunmore's War]], would receive land grants in lieu of pay for their service in either the Virginia militia or the [[Continental Army]]. The District was defined to lie between the [[Green River (Kentucky)|Green River]] and the Carolina line stretching from the Tennessee and Ohio Rivers in the west and tapering to a point near the [[Cumberland Gap]] in the southeast. Most of it except a wedge adjacent to the [[Cumberland Mountains]], lies in the geographic region of the Pennyroyal, and occupied over 35% of the land area of Kentucky County. Legitimate claims held under the Transylvania colony were excluded from allocation, as well as the grant to [[Richard Henderson (jurist)|Richard Henderson]] along the Green River. The District remained a separate area when Kentucky County was divided into subsidiary counties in 1780. Later, in 1784, Virginia allocated another district north of the Ohio River, because it was afraid that the Kentucky district was inadequate. Claims resulted in a warrant for a specified number of acres depending on the soldier's rank and length of service. A claim was validated by building a cabin and planting corn. A survey establishing the bounds would be made, and a patent thereafter issued. In December 1795, an act of the Kentucky Legislature required military claims to be presented before January 1796 or become void (although the Act was amended several times to grant extensions). Thereafter, unclaimed areas of the Military District were open to general settlement.
Kentucky County was abolished effective November 1, 1780, when it was divided into [[Fayette County, Kentucky|Fayette]], [[Jefferson County, Kentucky|Jefferson]], and [[Lincoln County, Kentucky|Lincoln]] counties.<ref name="apps.sos.ky.gov"/> Afterward, these counties and those set off from them later in that decade were designated collectively as the District of Kentucky by the [[Virginia House of Delegates]]. On March 7, 1789, the Virginia General Assembly officially changed the spelling of Kentucke to Kentucky. The counties of the district frequently petitioned both the Virginia legislature and the [[Continental Congress]] seeking [[Admission to the Union|statehood]]. Finally successful, the [[Kentucky|Commonwealth of Kentucky]] was admitted to the [[United States]] as the 15th state in 1792.<ref>{{cite web|title=Official Name and Status History of the several States and U.S. Territories|url=http://www.thegreenpapers.com/slg/statehood.phtml|website=TheGreenPapers.com|access-date=March 31, 2018}}</ref> Harrodsburg, which had become the seat of government for Lincoln County and then Mercer County, was the seat of the federal court for the district until the legislature of the new state designated [[Frankfort, Kentucky|Frankfort]] as its capital in 1792.
'''Militia officers'''
The county militia was organized as follows:<ref>Otis Rice, ''Frontier Kentucky'' (University Press of Kentucky, 1975), 85.</ref> *[[John Bowman (pioneer)|John Bowman]] – Colonel – County Lieutenant of Kentucky County, Virginia 12/1776 & 11/1779 *[[George Rogers Clark]] – Major *[[Anthony Bledsoe]] – Major *[[John Todd (Virginia soldier)|John Todd]] – Captain – Virginia *[[Benjamin Logan]] – Captain – Kentucky County, Virginia *[[Daniel Boone]] – Captain – Boonesborough, Kentucky *[[James Harrod]] – Captain – Harrodsburg, Kentucky
==See also== *[[Illinois County, Virginia]] *[[History of Kentucky]] *[[List of former counties, cities, and towns of Virginia]] *[[Trans-Appalachia]] *[[Wilderness Road]] *[[Overmountain Men]] *[[Tennessee County, North Carolina]]
==References== {{reflist}}
==External links== *[http://apps.sos.ky.gov/land/nonmilitary/coformations/countysearch1.asp?searchby=NEW+COUNTY&searchstrg=Kentucky 1776 Act to create Kentucky County, Virginia] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120205223108/http://apps.sos.ky.gov/land/nonmilitary/coformations/countysearch1.asp?searchby=NEW%20COUNTY&searchstrg=Kentucky |date=February 5, 2012 }} State of Kentucky Secretary of State website
{{Kentucky}} {{Virginia}}
[[Category:Pre-statehood history of Kentucky]] [[Category:History of Virginia]] [[Category:Former counties of Virginia]] [[Category:1776 establishments in Virginia]] [[Category:1780 disestablishments in Virginia]] [[Category:States and territories disestablished in the 1780s]]