Lewis County

By Dr. William M. Talley and Paula Franke

Lewis County, located in far northeastern Kentucky, was formed in 1806 and named for explorer Meriwether Lewis. The county was once teeming with industry as a supplier of finished goods and agricultural products. Historically, the county s proximity to the Ohio River allowed the export of
timber and salt, and in the 1800s, railroad transportation made Lewis County an influential source of railroad ties, boat-building materials, and barrels. In later years, the area was most popular for its health resorts, spas, and sulfur waters, which attracted visitors from as far as New York and Chicago. The images in this volume depict the county s military influence, as Lewis Countians had strong allegiance to the Union during the Civil War. The photographs featured in Images of America: Lewis County have been drawn from the archive of the Vanceburg Depot
Museum and from various private collections.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Arcadia Publishing
• Release date: Jul 13, 2005
• ISBN: 9781439612996

Dr. William M. Talley

Dr. William M. Talley is a retired university professor who taught and supervised graduate students at McGill University (Montreal) for 30 years. His lifelong interest has been the genealogy and history of northeastern Kentucky. Since 1997, Talley has written a weekly history column for the Lewis County Herald. Paula Franke is also a retired university professor and currently serves as production editor and webmaster for the Lewis County Herald.

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Lewis.

INTRODUCTION

Lewis County is one of Kentucky’s largest counties in terms of land mass and has the longest boundary with the Ohio River. The area comprising the county was taken from Mason County by an act of the Kentucky Legislature in December 1806, and its first court meeting was held at the home of Oke Hendrickson at Poplar Flat early in the year 1807. The village of Clarksburg was designated as the county seat in 1809 and was eventually moved to Vanceburg in 1863–1864.

What was Vanceburg like in 1797, when it was chosen as the location for a town? In all likelihood, it was a heavily forested area where very little of the original timber had ever been touched by an ax. There was no town or village as such, but there may have been two or three log cabins somewhere within the 55-acre section that was the original layout of the town.

No doubt there were people in small boats going in and out of the mouth of Salt Lick Creek, where there was considerable activity at the salt wells located between Vanceburg and Clarksburg. There was probably the smell of wood smoke in the air because of the constant fires, where kettles of salt water were boiled day and night. There were many flatboats, loaded with settlers and their possessions, passing downriver on their way to settlements like Limestone (now Maysville) further downstream.

All in all, it was still a wilderness that had not been exploited by man.

The heavily forested hills of the county have some of the best oak hardwoods in the United States. Throughout the county’s history, the forests have been the mainstay for laborers and their income, always producing vast amounts of lumber, barrel staves, tanbark, railroad ties, firewood, and numerous wood products.

The county is well watered by several streams, the most notable of them being Kinniconick Creek, well known for its fishing and camping attractions. Other major streams are Salt Lick Creek, Cabin Creek, Indian Creek, the North Fork of Licking River, Montgomery Creek, and Quick’s Run. The Ohio River, which serves as the county’s northern boundary, originally contained four interesting islands (now only three); one group, known as the Three Islands, was a major landmark for early settlers making their way downstream.

The site where Vanceburg now stands began to draw attention when the salt-making operations, known as the Ohio Salt Works, opened in 1794, and the first wells were dug by Moses Baird, Joseph C. Vance, and John Heath. Soon afterwards, there followed numerous other persons who were interested in the salt-making industry.

Baird and Vance saw the advantage of laying out a town and selling lots; thus, on June 30, 1797, they purchased a 55-acre tract from Alexander Keith Marshall out of his 200-acre patent and shortly afterwards drew up the plat, recorded in Mason County. The town was named for Vance rather than Baird because there was already a Bardstown, which would be much confused with a Bairdstown.

Unfortunately, it was later found that Marshall did not have clear title from the Virginia Land Office for the patent on the land. This created many headaches for Baird and Vance, who had to deal with the people who had purchased lots in their town. Baird lived across the river on his farm near Sandy Springs, and finally Vance left the area and moved to Urbana, Ohio, where he died.

Who were some of the first European people ever to walk across the land where Vanceburg now stands? Some of the earliest explorers of the Ohio River Valley indicate that the Native Americans knew of the salt licks behind Vanceburg, and they came to hunt deer, buffalo, and other animals that came there to lick salt. Perhaps the Shawnees, who had settlements near the mouth of the Scioto River in both Ohio and Kentucky, were frequent visitors at the site. The French fur traders who spent time at Shanoah (a Shawnee town) were probably the next people to visit this place after the Shawnees shared their information with them. An old newspaper article, published in 1881, says that