Kenton Co. Items from
Collins' History of Kentucky
www.nkyviews.com
| May, 1774 | Capt. James Harrod, Abram Hite, Jacob Sandusky, and 37 other men descended the Ohio, encamp at the mouth of Deercreek, where Cincinnati now is, and upon that ground cut the first tree ever cut by white men. They go on down to the mouth of the Kentucky, and up that stream to what now is Mercer county, where in June, they lay off Harrodsburg, and erect a number of cabins. |
| May, 1782 | Col. George Rogers Clark and two regiments (998 men) under Cols. Benj. Logan and Wm. Linn - part of whom are from Louisville and part from the interior - rendezvous at Covington, and build a block house where Cincinnati now is for the purpose of leaving some stores, and some men who were wounded in an Indian attack on Capt. McGary's company, which marched part of the way on the Indiana side, while the main body kept on the Kentucky side. [This was the first house ever built in Cincinnati.] The expedition is very successful in surprising and destroying the Indian towns of Chillicothe, Piqua, and Loramie's store. |
| January 27, 1830 | Company chartered to erect a bridge across the Licking River, between Newport and Cincinnati. |
| August 24, 1835 | Railroad proposed (and several public meetings to forward it) from Paris to Covington; Maj. John S. Williams, a civil engineer, says “a railway might be constructed from the elevation opposite Paris to a full view of the city of Cincinnati, without one perch of masonry, at a cost of $720,000, if over the ridge route, through Williamstown.” |
| September 18, 1838 | Annular eclipse of the sun, beginning at Covington, 2t 2:26, and ending at 5:08 p. m.; the last central eclipse of the sun visible in Kentucky until May 26, 1854. |
| February 7, 1846 | Legislature passes an ACT to incorporate the Covington and Cincinnati bridge company. |
| July 31, 1850 | During this month (deaths by cholera) in Covington, about 40. |
| March 23, 1853 | Population of Covington per assessor's census, 12,154 - an increase since 1845 of 8,587; value of taxable property $5,359,650. |
| December 28, 1853 | Covington lighted with gas. |
| February 16, 1854 | 54 shares of Northern Bank of Kentucky stock sold in Lexington for $116.50 per share |
| October 18, 1854 | Failure of the Kentucky Trust Company Bank at Covington |
| 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. |
| April 1-7, 1856 | In 7 days, the Scott street ferry-boats crossed the river 1,480 times, carrying 29,311 passengers over 12 years [of age], 369 horses, 382 cattle, 1,566 drays, 627 buggies, and 450 other 1-horse vehicles, 74 two-horse carriages, 230 omnibuses, 341 other two-horse vehicles, 32 3-horse and 178 4-horse vehicles. This information was obtained as data for the probable business of the proposed bridge from Covington to Cincinnati. |
| April 9, 1858 | From the following 21 companies, Gov. Morehead selects by lot 10 to compose the regiment to be tendered to the U.S. War department for service in Utah.” [A Kenton County company under Capt. Rees.] |
| August 14, 1862 | [Kentucky Governor Magoffin receives a letter from 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 Kenton County were:] 11 - Wm Henry Tarvin,, Henry Zell, S. Webster, Wm. Long, J. J. Childress, Wyatt Morgan, Wm. Smith, Silas Sparrow, J. W. Pelly, W. H. H. Plummer, and G. G. Waller. |
| July 9, 1863 | The archives of Ky., about four wagon loads in all, sent from Frankfort to Covington for safekeeping. |
| July 15, 1864 | Out of over 1,000 men drafted in Kenton co. only 21 have given personal service; and only 8 out of similar number drafted in Campbell co. |
| 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: . . . Kenton Co. - Daniel Mooar, M. Duke Moore, John W. Leathers, Green Clarkson, W. D. F. Timberlake, F. M. Northcutt, Wm. Coleman, W. W. Wilson, Robert M. Carlisle, Samuel Howard. |
| November 5, 1864 |
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| November 4, 1864 | Col. Frank Wolford again arrested (the 4th time) and sent off to Covington, en route to the Southern Confederacy. |
| 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. |
| September 5, 1865 | Judge Jos. Doniphan, in the circuit court at Covington, decides the expatriation act (Wikipedia) unconstitutional. |
| August, 1866 | In Covington, 5 citizens report incomes during 1865 over $20,000, viz.: 12 reported incomes between $10,000 and $20,000, and 26 over $5,000 and under $10,000. |
| February 27, 1869 | Great Temperance revival at Covington; over 1,000 persons have signed the pledge since January 1. |
| April 5, 1869 | 26,000 barrels of whiskey in bonded warehouses in Covington. |
| August 10, 1869 | Death, near Covington, of Thos. D. Kennedy; he was born in Cincinnati in 1795, when but one house stood upon the site of the present city of Covington; several years after, he was brought to Covington, where he lived, or in its immediate neighborhood, for 70 years. |
| January 22, 1870 | The city treasurer's report sows the total income for the year 1869 of the city of Covington to be $171,479 - of which fro taxes, $171370; from coffee houses and beer saloon licenses, $8,677; from wharfage, $1,345; etc., and among its expenditures, for officer salaries, $10,230; for police, $10,336; for gas, $12,774; for internal improvements, $43,698; for cleaning streets, $12,224; etc. |
| March 18, 1870 | Death, at St. Anthony, Minnesota, of Rev. Asa Drury, D. D., and eminent Baptist clergyman, teacher, and professor. For a number of years he was professor of Ecclesiastical history and greek literature in the Baptist Theological Institute a Covington, Ky., and for some ten years thereafter, principal of the High School and superintendent of public schools of Covington. He had been a professor in Cincinnati College, in Denison University at Granville, Ohio, and in Waterville College, Maine. |
| November 23, 1870 | Burning of the Drennon House, at Covington; several guests badly burned; one ( L. S. Waugh, of Carlisle) dies from his injuries. |
| Dec. 26, 1870 | A young man in Covington skated from opposite 9th street, on the Licking river, up to a point opposite the long tunnel on the Ky. Central railroad, 10 ½ miles, and back, in 2 hours. |
| February 18, 1871 | D. Howard Smith, state auditor, reports to the senate the indebtedness of the several counties, cities, and towns in Ky., for the construction of railroads. The total amount, deducting several sums voted to railroads since abandoned, $13,783,983. - distributed as follows: In the Covington and Lexington (now Ky. Central) R. R.: . . .city of Covington, $470,000. |
| July 1, 1871 | 1,624 practicing lawyers in Ky., of which county of Jefferson, 221; in Kenton 56; Fayette, 42; McCracken, 35; Daviess, 27; Warren, 25; Campbell, 23; Christian, 23; Henderson, 21, and Perry, none. |
| March 31, 1872 | Republican state convention at Louisville; J. B. Stansberry (colored) temporary secretary. Because of a pledge to support the nominees of the Philadelphia convention was demanded and because also what they deemed the uncourteous treatment of one of their number by the chairman, 14 (one colored)of the 17 delegates from Kenton co. withdrew. Delegates selected in favor of Gen. Grant's re-election as president. |
| April 8, 1872 | Severe rain storm over a large portion of the state; freshets in small streams'; some turnpikes and railroads greatly damaged by washing, and loss of bridging. . . .100 coal barges, half of them loaded with coal, swept off from Covington. |
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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.