Stevens Letter, Nov. 28, 1878

As I expect to say something of this place hereafter, I will now proceed to give a short history of Grant’s Lick, which is situated about 8 miles south of this place.  That has been a place of note from about the beginning of the present century up to this time.  The first settlers at that place were among the best citizens of the county.  I will name some of them as there are many of their descendants living there yet: Dickinson’s Gosney’s, Daniel’s, Yelton’s, Bryant’s, Smith’s, and others.  John Grant, who was said to be a great Indian fighter, and in the bloody battle of Blue Lick’s, on the Licking river, and an Uncle of Wm. Grant, of Kenton county, near the big tunnel.   He sunk the first well at Grant’s Lick and found plenty of strong and salt water, that was drawn up by a horse and windlass and then boiled in iron kettles, then supplying the country with salt. This he done for several years, until they got to sinking other wells, which he discovered was hurting the first well, and, nothing gained, sold out, salt being very high, never less than $2.00 per bushel, others run it until about 1825, when it was abandoned.  At the beginning of this lick there was a store owned by John Lindsey (if I have his given name right).  I think this was the second store in Campbell county at that time, Richard Southgate running one in Newport.  There was also a blacksmith shop carried on by James Craig, with whom James Gosney, a son of one of the old settlers, learned his trade and worked there and near the place until his death, which occurred a few years ago, aged 80 odd years.  It was also a noted place, having the only Post office outside of Newport, for sometime after the war of 1812.  The mail was carried on horseback from Cincinnati, Ohio, to Georgetown, Ky., once a week.  Your correspondent carried this mail before and at the beginning of the war of 1812 from Cincinnati to Grant’s Lick.  The mail was taken out of the office at Cincinnati at 8 o’clock on Wednesday morning, and then carried to the Post office at Newport, Daniel Mayo being the Post-master, then to the Lick at 12 o’clock, then returning to Cincinnati on Sunday at 4 o’clock.  At that time there was but one house between this place and the Lick, and more between here and the Cold Spring neighborhood, and but one between that and Newport, Prof. Stubbs living two miles this side of Newport.  John W. Stevens

From the Newport Local, November 28, 1878