The Undersigned committee, appointed by an informal mass meeting, held at the court house in Falmouth, June 12^th, 1876, to write a history of Pendleton County, to be read on the Fourth of July, 1876, beg leave to submit the following as a result of their labor.

                        -Jas. Wilson, W. W. Ireland, G. M. Colvin, J. Baldwin, J. W. Edwards

To the writer has been assigned a very difficult and varied task.  The first settlement of the county; the history of the medical profession, with a faithful biographical sketch of the members of the profession for the last seventy eight years, with scarcely any data to draw on; the history of the church and the schools of the county to the year 1840.  To do justice would require more labor than the writer could possibly devote to them.  This sketch must of necessity be imperfect, and the friends of the first settlers and the members of the medical profession must not conceive that the writer intends any slight.  The means he has to govern him in this undertaking is the data etc., furnished him by the physicians, now living in this country, and his personal recollection running back to the year 1908.

Pendleton County is one of the tier of counties bordering on the Ohio river.  Falmouth, the county sat, is situated at the confluence of the Main and South branches of the Licking River, on the Kentucky Central Railroad, thirty-nine miles from Cincinnati.  The surface of the county is generally hilly, with narrow valleys bordering the principal water courses.  The soil is, in point of fertility, next to the far famed blue grass region, to which it is immediately adjacent.  All sorts of grain and other agricultural products peculiar to the same latitude in the United States, and producing an excellent quality of tobacco has within the last ten or fifteen years become the staple crop of the county, though previous to 1860, it was cultivated only to a very small extent.  The subsoil rests upon a Silurian limestone foundation of the Feonton [sic] period, which abounds in well defined fossil remains of marine animals that once thronged the waters of the Gulf of Mexico, which in ages past, flowed over this part of the Union, and extended even north of the present bed of the Ohio.

The first settlement was in the valleys of Main and South Licking Rivers and their tributaries.  The County then was densely covered with timber of almost every variety found in this latitude. In the early days, deer, wild turkeys, bear, and all kinds of wild game were in abundance in the forest and were killed by the settlers for food.  Indeed, the rifle and hook and line formed a very important and necessary outfit for the settlers.  There was also a wide variety of carnivorous animals such as panther, wildcat, foxes, wolves, etc., which prowled around the cabins and frequently destroyed sheep, pigs, poultry, etc. of the settlers.

First Settlements

About the year 1776, the first permanent settlements were made by persons from the interior portion of the State and from Virginia, Pennsylvania and other older States.  Two neighborhoods in the county claim a priority on settlement, viz: South Licking and Grassy Creek.  We think, however, their settlements must have been about the same time, probably in 1776.

The valley in which Falmouth stands was settled at an early date by John Waller, John cook, Alvin Montjoy, John Sterne, Jacob Sink, Mr. Lenyear and others; 

Grassy Creek by the Thrashers, Belews, Manns, Morris, Hensleys, Daughertys, Vastines, and others;

Short Creek by John Lightfoot, Crain, Brown, Barton and others;

Fork Lick Creek by John Ewing, Fogle, Henry, John Conyers, Thompson, Thomas dance, Hand and others;

Snake Creek by Harden, Edwards, Stone and others;

Blanket Creek by Waller, Minor, Williams, Watsons, Clark and Forsythe;

Willow Creek by Vaughn, Griffin and Browning;

Flour Creek by Taylors, Wheeler and others;

South Licking Groves by Wycoff, Turner, Sanders, Bryan, Routt, Fugate, Clarkson, Griffin, McCandless, Ewing and others.

It would be a pleasing task to take up the families of the hardy first settlers and give the important incidents in their history, but this we must reluctantly decline for want of time.  They settled near a spring, cleared a patch of ground, raised corn, and vegetables.  A patch of wheat was for many years an exception to the general rule.  They raised a patch of flax and a few sheep, which, constituted here and there with a patch of cotton and the skins of deer, the means by which people were clothed.  The sheep and other stock ran in the woods and at night the sheep were penned close to the house to protect them from the wolves.  The women with cards, wheels and looms and willing hands made the fabric out of which articles of clothing were made.  They were a social people, having quiltings and other social parties, log rollings, house-raisings and squirrel hunts.  The neighborhood would divide off and hunt until 11 or 12 o’clock, when they would assemble at a spring and have their game cooked and eat and drink and be merry, for they always had plenty of good whiskey, and had shooting matches until they were all satiated with the enjoyments of the day.

Early Education

The first settlers had great difficulty in giving their children even a common English education.  The county was so sparsely inhabited that two or more neighborhoods combined in furnishing a sufficient number of scholars to form a school.  The first school taught in the county was at Bunker Hill near the spot where the present schoolhouse now stands, and was taught by John B. Lightfoot or a Mr. Spiller. The preponderance of testimony is in favor of the latter.  Scholars attended this school for several miles around.  There were schools taught at Grassy Creek, flour Creek, Point Pleasant, Falmouth, and other centers of population.  This man Spiller, after having taught at Bunker Hill for a year or two, built a cabin on Lick Branch, about one and one-half miles southeast of Falmouth where he taught sometime, and our information is that he died about the year 1810.  It would be an interesting work to trace these pioneer teachers and their families and posterity to the present, but we forbear.  As the county became more densely populated, schools sprang up in every neighborhood and the facilities of education became more general throughout the county.

First Churches

For the introduction of Christianity in the county, our Baptist brethren are justly entitled to the credit.  A Baptist church was organized, called the “Baptist Church of the Forks of Licking,” embracing the territory lying between the two forks of the Licking.  They sometimes alternated their monthly services at Point Pleasant, about nine or ten miles southwest of Falmouth, and at Union, on a branch, within a mile of Main Licking, about six miles southeast of Falmouth.  Their first pastor was Alexander Monroe.  The pastorate commenced in the year 1792 and continued until 1825, when L. C. Abernathy succeeded him.  About the same time, a Baptist Church was established on Grassy Creek, as to the first pastor of which we are not informed.  We have a personal recollection of the Rev. Mr. Tomlin at an early day, but cannot say whether or not he was the first pastor.  The next Christian denomination that held regular meetings in the county was the Methodist.  A gentleman by the name of Robert Groves was perhaps the first Methodist who preached in the county.  In a few years he was replaced by the regular circuit rider who preached at private houses and schoolhouses, generally preaching every day in the week, organizing classes and churches wherever an opportunity presented itself.  Our first recollection of a Methodist circuit, of which Falmouth was a part, commenced at Newport and extended to the territory lying between the Ohio and Licking Rivers, to Falmouth.  The same is territory now occupied by six or seven regular pastors.  The Methodists and Baptists were acknowledged pioneers in propagating the Gospel of our Lord and Savior in Pendleton County.  In a few years all the other protestant denominations established themselves in the county until it may with propriety be said that our county is as thoroughly furnished with public worship of God as almost any other county in the states.

The county contains besides the county seat, but two towns of more than two hundred inhabitants – Butler and Boston.  At the latter place are located the Licking River Lumber and Mining Company, largely engaged in the manufacture of lumber from logs run down the river from the mountains of Kentucky.

The population of Falmouth in 1870 was 614; in 1875 over 900, at this date over 1,000.  Showing a rapid increase in the last few years, which is only remarkable since having been established since 1790, and at one time was, in point of importance as well as in population, in advance of Covington and perhaps Louisville.

The most material developments of this as well as most of the older counties of the state have been since the year 1840, owing to many causes.  In that war[?], Kentucky was heavily taxed, both in men and money, and its close found her people prostrated in every sense, without open farms, in debt, without markets and compelled to accept a depreciated and uncertain currency.  It took several years to recover from these combined forces of adversity.  Following these or rather as a result of an unsuccessful attempt to recover from them, they were involved in that terrible struggle growing out of the Old and New Court controversy, lasting for many years; and then came on with all its mighty force the great financial crisis, caused by the Presidential veto of the act re-chartering the U.S. Bank and the formation of another financial system.  During all these years, the people had no time to think of improvements beyond those actually necessary, and no means to prosecute any great works or developments or improvements, had they been ever so anxious to do so.  During the last unhappy Civil War, the people of Pendleton County were much divided in sentiment and passion and ill feeling often ran high; many of her noblest and best sons enlisted in both of the armies and many gave their lives in defense of the cause in which they believed right.  Pendleton was never behind in her quota of troops for the Union cause, although two drafts were made by mistake upon her citizens.

Railroad

In the year 1843 the question of building a railroad from Covington to Lexington began to be much discussed, and for some years it entered largely into the political crevices of the county.  Several attempts were made to obtain a charter from the Legislature, which were strongly opposed by those who feared that the erection of a [rail]road would divert much trade from the interior of the state from Louisville to Cincinnati.  In 1849 the Legislature passed the charter.  Almost immediately after the passage of the charter, much subscription was taken and the road begun and was completed in 1854.  This road runs through Pendleton for a distance of 25 miles and through the corporate limits of Falmouth.  In the year 1853, Pendleton subscribed $50,000 to the capital stock of this road, upon conditions too numerous to mention in a sketch like this. Suffice it to say that these bonds were $1,000 each, running for thirty years.  In the year 1859 demand was first made for payment of interest on these bonds from the county.  This demand was resisted; litigation then began, and after many years of struggle in the various courts having jurisdiction, resulted adversely to the county, and in that time paid about as much in interest as the original bonds amounted to.  The levies made upon the real estate to raise this interest was a great burden to the land owner of the county, and hung like an incubus on her prospects and prosperity.  In 1859 the road was sold for debt, by decree of the Fayette Circuit court, in the suit of the creditors against the original stock holders, being purchased by those who have since run it under its present name.  Soon after this sale, suit was commenced in the Kenton Circuit Court to set aside the above decree and restore the road to its original owners.  This suit was prosecuted for several years until it was finally settled by the Court of appeals in 1872, substantially in favor of the old company.  To this action, Pendleton was a party.  The decision of the Court of Appeals resulted in a compromise by which Pendleton County was largely freed from the debt and one more obstacle to her future prosperity removed.