Boone County Items from
Collins' History of Kentucky
| 1739 | M. Longueil descends the Ohio, from Canada, and discovers Big Bone Lick in Kentucky. Many Canadians follow that route |
| March 13, 1751 | {Christopher} Gist meets two men belonging to Robert Smith, from whom he obtained a jaw tooth, over 4 lbs weight, which, with other teeth, and several rib bones, 11 feet long, and a skull bone 6 feet across the forehead, and several teeth which he called horns, over 5 feet long, and as much as a man could carry, "were found in the year 1744, in a [Big Bone] Salt Lick, or spring, upon a small creek which runs into the south side of the Ohio, about 15 miles below the mouth of the Great Mineami {sic}river, and about 20 miles above the Falls of the Ohio." |
| May 30, 1765 | Col. George Groghan “arrives at the place where elephant bones are found (Big Bone Lick) and encamps.” |
| June 4 and 5, 1773 | The companies {Robert McAfee, Capt. Thomas Bullitt, Hancock Taylor, James McAfee, Robert McAfee,James McCoun, Jr., and Samuel Adams} visit Big Bone, in what is now Boone County, making seats and tent poles of the enormous backbones and ribs of the mastodon found there in large quantities. |
| August 25, 1782 | Col. Archibald Lochry, Capts. Orr, Stokely, Campbell, and Shannon, and 101 men, when on their way down the Ohio to the Falls to join Gen. Clark's expedition, land on the Indiana shore, at a reek since called Lochry's, nine miles below the Great Miami, and are fired on by Indians from the bluff; 42 killed and 64 taken prisoners. |
| January 29, 1789 | A party of adventurers leave Limestone {Maysville} under Judge Symmes, in flat boats, and at great hazard on account of ice, early in February, reach North Bend, where Judge S. founds a city, and each adventurer receives a donation lot. |
| January 26, 1818 | Forty-six independent banks chartered, and with capital as follows: . . .$100,000 at . . . Burlington. |
| Feb. 10, 1820 | Independent bank charters repealed. |
| June 14, 1850 | John Norris, of Boone County, Kentucky, recovers a judgment in the U. s. Circuit Court of Indianapolis, of $2,800 and costs (about $2000) against Newlan, Crocker and others for runaway slaves of Norris, which he had re-captured in South Bend, Indiana, and which they took from him by force. |
| September 27, 1852 | Stampede of slaves across the Ohio River, 32 from Mason and Bracken, 9 from Campbell, and 14 from Boone county. |
| September 1, 1855 | Apples grown in Boone and Kenton counties; Mammoth pippins weighing 19 and 22 ounces, queens weighing 1 ¾ pounds, 16 ¼ in circumference, and 2 ½ pounds, 18 inches around, and Holland pippins, weighing 1 ½ pounds and 14 ½ inches. |
| January 28, 1858 | Explosion and burning of the steamer Fanny Fern, 16 miles below Covington; 13 killed or drowned. |
| Feb. 20, 1862 | Boone is one of six counties cited by the State Auditor for having "paid up within $250" of their revenue owed to the state treasurer their revenue for 1861. |
| September 12, 1862 | Gen. Heth commences his deliberate retreat from the back of Covington. Federal troops cautiously pursue so far as Florence, 9 miles. |
| September 15, 1862 | Confederate forces again advance towards Covington, as far as Florence, 9 miles off, and engage in a skirmish in which they suffer slightly. |
| July 28, 1864 | Under General Sherman's instructions to General Burbridge, and partly upon Gen. Carrington's information to Gov. O. P. Morton, of Indiana,“ Gen. Burbridge orders the arrest of citizens, many of them leading and prominent, in many counties, among them the following: . . . Boone Co. - Dr. John Dulany, Spencer Fish, Henry Terrell, Warren Rogers, Edmund Grant and Jas. T. Grant. |
| March 6, 1865 | Mason, Boone, Nicholas, Campbell, Greenup, Gallatin, Bracken, Grant, Kenton, Butler, Carroll, Livingston, Lyon, Caldwell, Fleming, Oldham and Jefferson counties, and the city of Louisville, each authorized by special legislation to raise a bounty fund to aid enlistments and provide substitutes. |
| May 5, 1865 | 15 guerillas tear up the track of the Ohio and Mississippi railroad, in Ohio, on the Ohio river near North Bend, 14 miles below Cincinnati; when the night train stopped, they rob the passengers and Express safe of money and valuables, and $30,000 in U. S. Bonds, and escape across the river to Boone co., Ky. |
| January 24, 1867 | The legislature on Feb. 17, 1860, directed by the Governor to procure four gold medals - one each for Jas. Artus, Dr. Wm. Taliaferro, Jno. Tucker and Jno. Norris, all in 1813 residents of Mason co., but Norris now a resident of Boone co., and Dr. Taliaferro, now a resident of Cincinnati, Ohio - as “survivors of the Ky. Volunteers who - at the request of Commodore Perry - with such ready alacrity and heroism, repaired on board his fleet and assisted in the glorious victory of Sept. 10, 1813 over the British fleet on Lake Erie. [The medals were promptly procured, but, in the excitement of the intervening times overlooked, and are only now delivered]. |
| August 1, 1868 | At Big Bone Springs, Boone co., in digging to improve the facilities for barreling the water for sale, a wagon load of bones of the mammoth was discovered within a space of 15 feet - among them a tusk 10 inches thick and 12 feet long, a backbone of about equal dimensions, and a tooth 15 inches long, six inches thick, weighing 20 pounds. |
| July 28, 1870 | The chestnut mare Purity, formerly Lucy, sold in Boston for $25,000; she was bred by L. A. Loder, of Petersburg, Boone co., Ky., and trained by R. S. Strader, of Bullitsville, Boone co.; her firsts trial of speed was 3:17, her last 2:25 against a high wind. |
| February 23, 1872 | Frightful accident on the Louisville and Cincinnati Short Line Railroad, 4 miles from Verona Station, Boone co.; a train goes through an iron bridge, 25 feet high; 2 passengers killed and 53 wounded, one of whom dies. |
| March 8, 1873 | Death, near Florence, Boone co., of Gen. Leonard Stephens, aged 82; born March 10, 1791 in Orange co., Va., came with his father, Benj. Stephens, to near Bryan's station in 1806, and in 1907 to the neighborhood where he died, then an unbroken forest; at 32, represented Campbell co. in the legislature for four years, 1823, '24, '25 '26; at 38 was senator from Campbell and Boone for four years, 1829-33; was justice of the peace in Campbell co. for many years; and as senior magistrate when Kenton co. was formed in 1840, became high sheriff. |
excerpts from The History of Kentucky, by the Late Lewis Collins, Judge of the Mason County Court, Revised, Enlarged Four-Fold, and Brought Down to the Year 1874 by His Son, Richard H. Collins, A.M., LL.B. Because Collins uses both parentheses and brackets, if we've amended the text, we used braces.