Whitley County Named, 1818
Williamsburg, Whitley County, Kentucky
Marker Inscription
County Named, 1818. For Colonel William Whitley, famous leader in over 17 Indian battles. By 1794 had driven Indians from S.E. Ky. Joined Ky. militia in War of 1812. Killed at Battle of the Thames, 1813. Whitley County formed from Knox. Williamsburg, seat of government, also named for Col. Whitley. First court held, 1818, in home of Samuel Cox, first citizen of Williamsburg.
Erected by Kentucky Historical Society
The Story
Whitley County was formed in 1818 and named, like its seat of Williamsburg, for Colonel William Whitley—a famed Indian fighter credited with leading more than seventeen battles and helping drive Native peoples from southeastern Kentucky by 1794. He joined the Kentucky militia in the War of 1812 and was killed at the Battle of the Thames in 1813. The county's first court met in 1818 in the home of Samuel Cox, Williamsburg's first citizen.
Why it matters
Whitley's career embodies the violent frontier expansion of early Kentucky, where the displacement of Native nations and the wars of the young republic were bound tightly together in the lives of its settler leaders.
Own a business near here? Add it to the map.
Related people
- · William Whitley
- · Samuel Cox
Related events
- · Battle of the Thames (1813)
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Wayne County / "Mad Anthony" Wayne
Monticello, KY
Wayne County, established in 1800, honors General "Mad Anthony" Wayne, the fiery Revolutionary War hero who stormed Stony Point in 1779. His deepest mark on the future West came in 1794, when his victory at Fallen Timbers and the resulting Treaty of Greenville in 1795 broke Native resistance in the Old Northwest and opened the frontier—including Kentucky—to a surge of settlement. Wayne died in 1796, soon after his triumph.
Walker Daniel, Founder of Danville
Danville, KY
Walker Daniel founded Danville in 1781 and, two years later, became the first attorney general of the Kentucky District. Serving on a commission at the Falls of the Ohio, he helped allot the lands granted to George Rogers Clark's Illinois Regiment. His promising career was cut short in August 1784 when he was killed by Indians while traveling to visit his brother at Bullitt's Lick.
Samuel Boone
Lexington, KY
Here lies Samuel Boone (1728–1816), eldest brother of the famed pioneer Daniel Boone. Born in Pennsylvania, he came to Kentucky from South Carolina in 1779 and settled at Boone's Station, joining the 1782 defense of Bryan's Station during a period of intense frontier warfare. That same year his son Thomas was killed at the Battle of Blue Licks, one of the last engagements of the Revolution in the West.
Last Recorded Indian Raid
Hart County, KY
In October 1792 — the very year Kentucky entered the Union — a party of travelers was ambushed at Oven Spring, leaving several settlers dead or carried off and their pack horses seized. Such raids were the grim punctuation of a decades-long struggle over the Ohio Valley, where Native nations fought to hold ground against the flood of settlers pouring through the Cumberland Gap. This marker records what local memory held to be the last such attack in the county, closing the violent frontier chapter of the region's early history.