Grant County, 1889
(Why's the northwest corner missing?
Here.)
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Grant County, 1935 Red lines are roads, black lines are railroads. |
Magisterial District Map, 1940 |
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Grant County was the 67th county formed in Kentucky. The law enacting Grant County was passed on February 12, 1820 and the county was formed on April 1, 1820 from a part of Pendleton County. Its boundaries are unchanged since February 9, 1876. It has an area of 259.9 square miles, making it the 79th largest of Kentucky's 120 counties. |
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Grant County was formed in 1820, from parts of Pendleton County, and was named after "either Col. John Grant (1754-1826), pioneer salt producer in the Licking Valley; his brother Samuel (1762-1833), a surveyor who was killed by Indians; or another brother, Squire (1764-1833), a surveyor and large land owner in Campbell County, which he served in the State Senate (1801-06) and as sheriff (1810); or perhaps all three" according to Robert M. Rennick's Kentucky Place Names. |
The Grant County section of the USGenWeb
is here, and
the Grant County portion of the Kentucky Roots Web is
here.
In 1876, the Centennial of the
US, the Congress asked
local officials to write down the history of their
respective localities to be read on July 4, 1876.
Here is what Grant County came up
with.
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"During Tuesday night twenty-three negroes owned in Grant and adjoining counties, left their masters' roofs, and escaped to the Licking River, where they lashed together several canoes, and in disguise, where they disembarked and made a circuitous route to the northern part of Cincinnati. Early Wednesday morning they were run off on the road to Canada by the underground railroad," from The Louisville Journal, June 16, 1854. |
You'll want to visit Philip Naff's web site dedicated to
Williamstown
founder William Arnold, and the Arnold log cabin. It's
here.
A contemporary brochure on the Arnold cabin is here. (pdf)
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"An old fashioned basket
meeting is to be given by the Democracy of Grant county, at
Tungate's Grove, three miles north of Williamstown, on the Covington
and Lexington Turnpike, on Saturday, July 30th." |
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| About 7 miles east of Williamstown, near the Pendleton County line, was an infamous stopping-off point called Gum Springs. The author also adds a brief account of the Utterback incident. Read it all here. |
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The
19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, allowing women to vote, was ratified on
August 18, 1920.
The Grant County News was not a supporter. You can read their
objections here.
Ringling Brothers Circus Comes to Williamstown
In May of 1922, Grant County voted on whether to approve
higher taxes
for the Dixie Highway, connecting Lexington and Covington. There's
no doubt about how they felt. The vote is
here.
In 1922, the Grant County News takes a stand on Darwin's Theory of Evolution, here.
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"Grant Co - The prospects for wheat, rye, barley and oats are uncommonly good. Timothy is also very good. The corn crop looks promising, but very backward for the season" - New York Times, July 15, 1857 |
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The
Marshall Hotel in Corinth |
Della Jones: A
Grant County Treasure |
Bruce's
Grocery: A Grant County Gem |
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These three articles are reprinted from the Grant County Historical Society Newsletter. They are all pdf's. |
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The Kentucky Department of Agriculture's assessment of agriculture in Grant County, in 1898-1899 can be found here. (pdf) |
"A meteorite, weighing sixty-eight pounds, fell in Northern
Kentucky, this one
being found by A. E. Ashcraft in 1892 on his farm three miles north of
Williamstown."
Louisville Courier Journal, September 1, 1940
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Above is a page from William D. Ehmann's "Space Visitors in Kentucky: Meteorites and Meteorite Impact Sites in Kentucky" on the Williamstown meteorite. More about the one that hit Independence is here, or you can find the entire publication on line here. It's a 53 page long pdf. |
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This is Ms. Hazel Ogden, who taught the class below, and had the foresight to collect, save and bind the essays below for future generations. |
Grant County High School's 1963-64 American Literature Class
wrote essays on the histories of various Grant County communities.
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Blanchett, by Mary Ann O'Hara is here.
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Cherry Grove, by Terry Edmondson is here.
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| Cordova, by Larry Bailey, is here. |
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Corinth, by Clarence Brewsaugh, is here.
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Crittenden by Judy Holbrook is here.
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Crittenden by Jerry Hurst is here.
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Crittenden, by Terry Case is here.
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Crittenden, by Louise Plunkett is here.
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Crittenden, by Ronnie Lillard is here.
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Dry Ridge, by Connie Curry is here.
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Folsom, by Gary W. Webb is here.
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The Old Stone House in Folsom by Darris Beach is here.
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Gardnersville, by Linda Lou Mann is here.
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Gold Valley, by Ruth Ann Kinman is here.
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Hardscrabble, by Joe Souder is here.
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Heekin, by Shirley Spegal, is here.
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Keefer, by Mike Ellis is here.
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Keefer by Dwight Colson is here.
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Knoxville, by Rita Ruby is here.
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The Lanter Farm, by Marylee Lanter is here.
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Mt. Zion, by Virginia Wright is here.
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Mt. Zion, by Charles Baird, is here.
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Mason, by Patricia Mann is here.
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Mason, by Marietta Hedges is here.
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Mason, by Doris Henry is here.
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Oak Ridge, by Harold Kells is here.
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Screamersville, by Arnold Bolog is here.
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Sherman, by Pat Spillman is here.
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The Hanging at Sherman, by Barbara Arnold is here.
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Sherman, by Karen Cummins is here.
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The Second Oldest Home in Williamstown by Betty Jane Kinmon is here.
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High Street, by Charles Scroggins is here.
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John Wilkes Booth, by Bob Perry is here.
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Williamstown, by Janet Tebelman is here.
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Zion Station, by Linda Beach is here.
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"Judge O. P. Hogan [of Williamstown], in addition to his stage lines between Covington and Burlington and Walton and Williamstown, has started another line between the latter points, thus giving the people along that route a morning and evening line both ways. He has also started a line between Williamstown and Georgetown three times a week. The three latter lines all make close connections with trains at Walton." From the Covington Journal, May 31, 1873. |
The Kentuckiana Digital Library has a
number of Grant
County images. Quality is erratic, but it's worth a look,
here.
The Kentucky Historical Society's Grant
County images can
be found here. Click
on the Grant box when you get there.
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There are 15 different Grant Counties in the USA. Here are the other 14. |
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In 1969, Edna Talbott Whitley compiled a list of
Cabinetmakers
in Kentucky. The Grant County portion of that list is
here.
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"The county was the source of
some military action during the Civil War. A small Confederate
source raided Williamstown in 1964, hoping to seize large sums of
Federal money said to have been cached in banks there. Finding
the money removed, The Confederates seized a Union firearms store.
Later, south of Williamstown, three Confederates were brought from
Lexington and executed in reprisal for guerilla slayings of two
Union sympathizers." |
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Dry Ridge Fire Engine Saves Williamstown, 1922. Story
here.
. . . and the story prompts one subscriber to recall the fire of 1856,
here.
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There have been two Interstate Commerce Commission reports on train wrecks in Grant County. One's from an L&N wreck in Elliston in April of 1938 that killed one and injured 5, and is here. One's from Williamstown, on the Southern, in October of 1926, which killed one and injured three. You can read it here. |
Don't miss The Political Campaign of Caroline Gray, 1923, here.
In 1919, there was a farm census, counting livestock, crops and farms. Grant County's is here.
On August
4, 1852, the Cincinnati Daily Gazette published the State
of Kentucky’s Hog Assessment – the number of hogs over 6 months
old per county. The number in Grant County was 10,060.
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How Bullock Pen got its name, here. |
Theodore O'Hara "Doc" Sechrist, born in Williamstown, played for the New York Giants baseball team. His record is here. |
Three news clippings on Grant County Slavery, here. |
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The few words on the history of aviation in Grant County, here. |
Brief Histories on various Communities
and Churches in |
Oops. Way too many names discovered on the 1950 voter list, here. |
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Man confesses to 50 year old shooting, here. |
Grant County sites placed on the National Places of Historical Places are here. |
A history of Crittenden published in 1929 is here. |
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Some Grant Co Cemetery records |
Williamstown Homicide, 1872, here. |
Daisy Carol King's History of Grant County is here. (pdf) |
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Civil War prisoners from Grant County, here. |
An important figure in early Grant Co church history is Elder William Conrad. John B. Conrad's bio of him can be found here. |
Grant County news from the Covington Journal, 1868, here. |
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Grant County's Historical Markers are listed here. |
A status report from the Superintendent of Schools in Grant County from 1900 is here. |
Grant County news from the Daily Commonwealth, 1883, here. |
| Grant County's 1942 referendum to prohibit alcohol prompted this article. | A piece on slavery in Grant County is here. (pdf) | Grant officials scolded by Ky. Attorney General for speed trap. In 1930. Here. |
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Can you name the eight banks in Grant County in 1922? They're here. |
The Freedman's Bureau reports on a post-Civil War Outrage in Grant Co., here. |
The 1925 bus schedule from Owenton to Covington went thru Williamstown. It's here. |
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Courier-Journal's 1896 report on Grant Co Toll Roads, here. |
A list of the first automobiles registered for Grant County, in 1910-11, is here. |
Grant Co Officials & Merchants, 1847, here. |
| Blind Tigers rampant in 1901. Story here. |
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A short history of Grant Co from 1917 is here. (pdf) |
| List of Grant County Turnpikes, 1895, here. | A List of all 57 one-room schools in Grant County, in 1895, is here. |
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The first mention of an automobile in a Grant County paper is from the Williamstown Courier of June 29, 1905: “Claude Jones is now the proud owner of an Oldsmobile and is learning to be an expert at operating the machine."
“Claude Jones,
the energetic and popular telephone man of Williamstown . . .has
purchased an auto and skims over the country with the ease and
swiftness of a locomotive.” |
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1897 was watershed year for turnpikes, or as the
Williamstown Courier called them "Turnpike Roads,"
in Grant County. People did NOT like paying tolls, and destructive
vigilantes were not uncommon. There was an election
on whether or not to "free" the pikes, that is, let the county raise taxes to
assume all the costs, and give free passage.
The election results are
here.
A list of all of the turnpikes, and more data than you ever
wanted to know about them is here.
A list of the 18 gate houses subsequently put up for sale
is here.
(If you buy #18, get he flood insurance!)
This list of Grant County deaths from WWII is from
the National Archives. There's a key to
what the
various abbreviations mean here,
and the actual list is here.
Grant County soldiers who died in WWI are listed here.
Earl Thompson is hung, legally, in Williamstown
in 1910,
read the story
here.
(While hung for rape, there were rumors -
and it may well be just wild gossip - that
Thompson had been having
an affair
with the woman, and it was only when they were discovered that she cried rape.)
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"At Williamstown, Tuesday morning, a mob took from the jail
a prisoner charged with murder. At this writing the fate of the man is
unknown." |
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Liman Couch and Smith Maythe were lynched for their attack on John Utterback in 1841, here.
Grant County items from Lewis Collins' History of Kentucky, here.
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In 1876, the R. L. Polk Company published The Kentucky State Gazetteer and Business Directory, which listed information about virtually every town in Kentucky. The listings from Grant County are these: |
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| Corinth | Crittenden | Dry Ridge |
| Elliston | Mason | New Eagle Mills |
| Sherman | Williamstown | Zion Station |
An 1879 Gazetteer listing of Williamstown is here. (pdf)
| Memberships lists of the Masonic Lodges of Grant County in 1911 are here: (pdf's) | |
| Williamstown | Dry Ridge |
| Corinth | Crittenden |
Jacob Theophilus Simon had his bio (pdf) in the Biographical Encyclopedia of Kentucky.
You can get information on Grant County
ancestors by subscribing
to the mailing list created for that purpose. You'll get periodic
information, and can submit your own questions, all via email.
Sign up
here for
Grant County.
Here is a
list of all available lists on Kentucky.
left, Grant
County's First Airplane
right, Mrs. Carl Leming, first woman in Grant to
fly solo
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"With this issue the Williamstown Courier rounds out its twelfth year as a newspaper. a great many changes have taken place in Williamstown since the first number was released. . . It has witnessed the rise and fall of many businesses enterprises, and has seen at least four Grant county papers enter the Journalistic field and die in a short time for lack of sustenance: The Democrat, Eagle, Herald and Enterprise." - The Williamstown Courier, September 3, 1891. |
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"The ten banks of Grant county report$615,901.02 on
deposit with loans of $789,470.05."
from the Owenton News-Herald, July 27, 1905
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In 1930, Kentucky Progress Magazine ran a feature letting each of Kentucky's counties list their accomplishments for 1929. What Grant County came up with is here. (pdf) |
At one time or another, over 33 communities in Grant
County have had Post Offices. See the complete list,
here.
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"Every
week a report is received of the serious injury inflicted upon some
zealous football player. Up to date seven young men have been
seriously injured in the games this season, some of them crippled or
disfigured for life, perhaps. This is a class of sport that is too
brutal to be tolerated by the faculties of the various colleges
throughout the country. |
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Elsewhere on this site, we've reproduced the
History of the
Ten Mile Baptist Church, established in 1804. It was in N. W.
Grant
County when the church was first established, but long ago moved across
the line to Gallatin County. Still, there are a number of references
to Clark's Creek, Mt. Zion, etc. If you're interested, it's here.
"We haven't received a spring poem this
year. Thank the Lord."
from the Williamstown Courier, April 6, 1893
C. 1928, the Kentucky Opportunities
Department published a fact sheet about Grant
County for potential businesses that might be interested. You can read it
here.
(pdf)
Jacob Sandusky remembered passing thru
Williamstown on a bear hunt. In 1822.
His recollections are here.
Detailed Presidential voting statistics from Grant County are here.
A Map of the 24 churches in the Crittenden Association of Kentucky Baptists, 1953
from Trow's Legal Directory of Lawyers in the United States, 1875
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Iron Age magazine, on April 3, 1913, announced that "The Williamstown Mill and Light Company, Williamstown, Ky., has let a contract to Ellis King, Falmouth, Ky., for the installation of an electric light plant, including a street lighting system. J. M. Riley, J. W. Shields and others are members of the company which has $15,000 capital stock." |
"Williamstown, Ky., May 12 - Clifford Nadaud, ex-bicycle
champion road racer, erstwhile republican, and
Klondike explorer, astonished the natives in this section Sunday by his
announcement for Congress from the
Kentucky district as a democrat." The Hopkinsville
Courier, May 16, 1902
The McComas-Hutton feud played out in the streets of Williamstown in 1903, here.
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This is a geologic map of Grant County from 1925. |
| "A crowd of wheelmen from this place ran into Cincinnati last Sunday on their wheels [bicycles]. Among them were O. P. Elliston, W. G. O'Hara, Isom Sanders, and J. H. Westover. They reported a very enjoyable day and good wheeling into the city." Williamstown Courier, August 8, 1895 |
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| " The bicycle craze is spreading. During the past week Walter Points, County Clerk; Ezra D. Webster, Judge J. D. McMillan and others have learned to ride a wheel." Williamstown Courier, May 2, 1895 |
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Additional Links that apply to all of Northern
Kentucky Views, and may or may not
be related to Grant County, are on the main Links & Miscellany page,
here.
