Grant County Items from Collins’ History of Kentucky
| July 10, 1841 | The “Lynch Law” at Williamstown, Grant county, Smith Maythe (who had been a convict in the Ohio and Kentucky penitentiaries) and Lyman Crouch (recently an under-jailer at Cincinnati) rob and murder (as they suppose) Wm. S. Utterback, of Bourbon county, by cutting his throat, on the highway; Utterback ultimately recovered, but was rendered speechless for life; 350 men from Bourbon and Harrison, fearful the villains would escape justice, broke open the jail, took them to the spot where the crime was committed, and hung and buried them there; the gallows was left standing for some 25 years, when it rotted down. The leaders of the mob were subsequently indicted for murder. |
| April 12, 1856 | At Williamstown, Grant co., 17 frame buildings (1 tavern, 4 stores, 12 residences) burnt, with a large portion of their contents; loss $70,000. |
| May 8 - 18, 1861 | Petitions pour into the legislature, daily, from the “Mothers, wives, sisters and daughters of Kentucky,” praying to “guard them from the direful calamity of civil war, by allowing Kentucky to maintain inviolate her armed neutrality.” [Grant is one of 31 counties and 11 cities cited.] |
| July 16, 1862 | Arrests of citizens charged with “disloyalty” increasing; 27 of “the wealthiest and most influential citizens (rebels) of Grant and Pendleton counties captured and taken to Camp Chase;” “a fine haul of 35 secesh prisoners picked up in Grant, Pendleton, Owen and Harrison, quartered temporarily in Newport barracks;” 13 “placed in the military prison at Louisville, to-day, 7 of them from Hopkins co.;” 11 “admitted” on yesterday; 18th, 8 “lodged” in the same prison, and 33 removed from it to the Indiana penitentiary at Jeffersonville. (Such are the daily reports in the Louisville papers.) |
| August 14, 1862 | [Kentucky Governor Magoffin receives a letter from 15 Grant Co. in] Camp Chase, Ohio, August 6, 1962, Prison #2,“ from 93 citizens who had been arrested between May 23 and August 4, setting forth “that while in peaceful pursuit of their legitimate business at home, without warrant or law, they had been arrested by force that overpowered them, placed in confinement; that they were denied a trial by any tribunal known to the laws of our common country, but were compelled to remain there in prison, away from their homes, wives, children, relations, and friends, who were not permitted to see them.” They prayed the legislature “to take speedy action in their behalf, and that they might have a trial before their peers in their own state.” [The signers from Grant County were:] O. D. McManama, Dr. R. G. Harrison, John DeHart, Gideon Kinman, John A. Turner, John H. Webb, O. P. Billiter, V. Simon, Jacob Isaak, Jas. W. Evans, Jas. C. Woodyard, John J. Hensley, John F. Flege, Esau Bayers, and G. W. Ferrill. |
| October 2, 1862 | Captain Mott, with 10th Ky. Cavalry, captures 18 rebels and 96 horses, at camp near Williamstown, Grant co. |
| May 1, 1864 | Aleck Webster, late of Mose Webster's band, returned home to work, at his father's, near Crittenden, Grant co.; is arrested by soldiers of Capt. Thos. W. Hardiman's Co., 55th Ky. - who receive orders to 'lose him on the way;' they tempt him to escape, then shoot him down like a dog, and bury him in his clothes, near the roadside. |
| June 27, 1864 | A squad from Lieut. Ranton's Co., 30th Ky., kills young Martin, near Crittenden, Grant co. |
| August 15, 1864 | Geo. W. Wainscott, Wm. Lingenfeltger and John W. Lingenfelter executed at Williamstown, Grant co., by order of Gen. Burbridge - in retaliation for the murder of Joel Skirvin and Andrew Simpson, by guerillas. |
| November 1, 1864 | A confederate force of 32 men, under Col. Robert J. Breckenridge, jr., and Maj. Theophilus Steele (son and son-in-law of Rev. Dr. Robert J. Breckenridge of Fayette co.), make a raid at 3 1/2 A. M. upon Williamstown, Grant co. - expecting to capture a large sum of U.S. government money, which they had been informed was in the safe in N. C. Tunis' store. The money had been removed, but they found 30 U.S. muskets which they captured; some of his men plundered the store freely. |
| November 3, 1864 | Four men, one of more of them captured while on their way to the Confederate army and accused of being guerillas - Wm. Long of Maysville, Wm. Tithe of Williamstown, Grant co., Wm. D. Darbro, near Dallasburg, Owen co., and R. W. Yates, of Bacon creek, Hart co., - were sent from Lexington under guard to Pleasureville, Henry co., and there shot to death - in retaliation for the killing of two negroes in the neighborhood, some days ago. Sixteen hours later, their bodies were lying on the floor in the depot, near where they were shot. |
| 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. |
| April 29, 1867 | A fire at Crittenden, Grant co., destroys the Masonic hall and several stores and other buildings |
| April 9, 1872 | Greatest flood in the upper Kentucky river since 1817; river rose 15 feet in 6 hours; over 20,000 saw logs, the property of poor people, floated off and lost. . . Eagle Creek, in Grant, Owen, Carroll and Gallatin counties was 4 feet higher than ever known; great damage done. |
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.