The settlement of the county was on the increase, and
to keep step with their more advance neighbors, was one of the
determinations formerly fixed. Backed by the authority of the young
Commonwealth, they began in earnest to open up lands to bring an
uninhabited wilderness from its rude originality to green fields of
growing grain; to substitute in place of wolves, herds of cattle and
sheep, grazing upon a thousand hills; to bring civilization from a
comparatively wild state of individual laxity, by organizing courts,
building rude temples of justice, and prison houses - such as their
limited means would allow - substituting public roads for the trails of
wild animals, clearing up the land for cultivation, and such other things
contemplated by law, and the progress of the times in other parts of this
great country. The second meeting of the County Court was held in the old
log school house on the first Tuesday in August, 1799. The first business
coming before the court was the proposition to establish public roads
whereupon the following order was passed:
SMITH'S FERRY ROAD.
"Ordered, that Samuel Hopkins, Jacob
Barnett and Thomas Willingham, or any two of them, mark and lay off a road
from the Public Square, in the Town of Henderson, to Smith's Ferry, on
Green River, and Samuel Hopkins is appointed surveyor of that road from
the Town of Henderson to the main fork of Lick Creek, and Thomas
Willingham, from the main fork of Lick Creek to the ferry; and it is
further ordered, that the said Samuel Hopkins, with his own hands; Arend
Rutgers, with his hands; Jacob Barnett, with his hands; Russell Hewett,
with his hands; Joshua Fleehart, Thomas Smith and Robert Baird, open the
said road and keep it in repair from the public square in Henderson to the
main fork of Lick Creek, and that John Kilgore, Thomas Freels, John
Knight, Nerod Franceway, Elijah Griffith, Lawrence Rawlasson, Jr., William
Rawlasson, Isaac Knight, Nathan Young, Jacob Vankird, Michael Hog, Adam
Hay, Alter McGlaughlin, Thomsa Stoll, Charles Davis and his male laboring
tithables, Adam Lawrence, Jr., John Lawrence, Isaac Lusade and Jesse
Kimbell, upon the said road and keep it in repair from the main fork of
Lick Creek, to Smith's Ferry."
This was the first road established in Henderson
County. It ran to a point two miles beyond Hebardsville, where it bore to
the right, and approached Green River at a point about one, or one and a
half miles above the present Henderson and Owensboro Ferry. This was the
crossing place for many years, bu subsequently changed to Calhoun Ferry,
the now crossing place. Under an act concerning public roads passed by the
General Assembly, February 25, 1797, this road was surveyed and opened,
yet we have no record of viewers even having been appointed. From this it
is reasonable to conclude that this route had been opened prior to 1799
and recognized as a public road, considerably traveled. The distance from
Henderson to Smith's Ferry was fully twenty miles, and mostly over a
hilly, rugged country, hence the difficulties the few men who were
required to mark, lay off and keep in repair the said road must have
laborer under. There were but two surveyors and twenty-eight whites, and
four or five colored laboring tithables to do the work required over the
whole line of twenty miles, a work which included clearing, grubbing,
leveling, filling and ditching thirty feet wide. From the list of men
appointed to do this work, the reader may from an idea of the
popoulation[sic] of the county at that time, remembering, of course, that
many of those named lived fully five and some eight miles from the line of
the road. Under the law of 1797, all male laboring persons from the age of
sixteen years or more, as well as colored male laboring tithables, were
appointed by the court, to work upon some public road. This being the
first and only public road in the county and only twenty-eight persons to
be found within its whole length of twenty miles, it will necessarily be
inferred that settlers at that early date were really few and far apart.
These few men and boys were required to open and keep this road in repair.
The road was to be kept well cleared and smoother thirty feet side at
least. Bridges and causeways twelve feet wide were to be made and kept in
repair, and for a failure to do any of the work required, the party
failing to attend with proper tools for clearing the road, or refusing to
work the same, subjected himself to a fine of seven shillings for every
day's offense. To comply with the law, was either an impossibiltity[sic],
or else the surveyors were totally incompetent, for it will be seen as
this work progresses with the business of the Court of Quarter Sessions,
that it was a certain feature of that court's business, at each session to
find bills of indictments against a large majority of road surveyors of
the county for failure to keep some parts of their road or roads in
repair.
History of Henderson County, Kentucky
by Edmund L. Starling
pps. 54 - 56
published in 1887
public domain material
