1795-1810

We would ask that you pause for a moment to consider how old these years really are.

At that time:

In the summer of 1805, Shawnee's attacked settlers on Bullock Pen Creek, near the old Lebanon Presbyterian Church in Grant County.  While raids were rare by this time, Indians were still very much a concern.

Tecumseh has not yet started his attempt (1811) to unite the Indian tribes in a major battle to eradicate treaty-ignoring whites in Ohio.

There are 17 states in the union; number 18 will be Louisiana in 1812. The only states west of the Appalachians are Kentucky (1792), Tennessee (1796) and Ohio (1803).

Not only do railroads not reach Northern Kentucky, the first steam locomotive isn't  invented until 1804 in England; the first train in the USA doesn't run until 1831.  Nobody in America knows what a railroad is. Ocean going ships are all powered by sails.  It's going to be 1807 before Fulton first steams up the Hudson River, and 1811 until steam comes to the Ohio River.

Thomas Jefferson is just sending out Lewis and Clark (1804). Edgar Allen Poe, Robert E. Lee, and Abraham Lincoln were only born in 1809; Ulysses S. Grant not until 1822.

It's fifty years before “In God We Trust” starts appearing on coinage (1864), over a hundred and thirty years until the Pledge of Allegiance is effected (1942), and a hundred and forty years before “under God” (1954) is added to it.

Darwinism is not yet controversial, because Darwin was just born in 1809.  Not yet in this world are Karl Marx (1818), Chopin (1810), Dickens (1812), and Mark Twain (1810). It'll be decades before Edison is born (1847), let alone makes a light bulb.

Founding father John Adams is still alive, and won't pass away until 1826. Jefferson dies in 1826. James Madison lives until 1836; Alexander Hamilton in 1804.

Newly introduced smallpox vaccines (c. 1800) are hugely controversial. Many thought them sacrilegious, some thought them to be unnatural, and some even saw them as government intrusion into their freedom. You knew or would know someone who died or would die from whooping cough, tuberculosis, measles, mumps, chicken pox, scarlet fever, cholera or diphtheria.

You still used flint and steel to start a fire, because matches won't be invented until 1827 and even then won't be widely available until the 1880's.

The 1800 Census listed these four largest Kentucky city populations:
Louisville, 359,
Frankfort, 628,
Washington, Mason County, 570,
Paris, 377.

The 1800 Census also shows 1,903 people in Campbell County, and that's when what is now Kenton County was still part of Campbell. The Gallatin County Census, including what is now Gallatin, Carroll and Trimble, is 1,291.

Colonel Robert Gibbon Johnson proves that tomatoes are not poisonous - a common misconception of the time - by eating them in public, but not until September 28, 1820.

Indiana won't be a state until 1816.

You eat what you can grow or hunt. Corn and beans are common, along with pork. Cows provide milk, butter, and beef; venison and other game also provide meat. Preserving food requires smoking, drying, or salting meat. Vegetables are kept in a root cellar or pickled. Most common fruits today were unknown, or very expensive treats.

Canning foods won't be invented until 1812, and even then, won't be commonly used until much later.

Documents published in English often use a 27 letter alphabet - they used a medial s (Wikipedia) in addition to the letters you know.

The post office delivers mail on Sundays as normal business. Nobody knows what a “weekend” is.

England has not yet abolished slavery (1833).

The bones of Big Bone Lick are super mysterious because virtually no one on earth has yet figured out the concept of “extinction.”

Not until 1814 does Frances Scott Key write  the words to the Star Spangled Banner.

Boone, Grant, Owen, Trimble, Carroll, and Kenton Counties have yet to be formed.

Spain still owns Florida.

Whiskey is commonly used as currency.

The removal of the Cherokee Nation from Kentucky and Tennessee, the infamous Trail of Tears, won't begin until 1838.

Daniel Boone will live for another dozen years.  He dies in Missouri in 1820. Simon Kenton dies in Urbana, Ohio in 1836.