HISTORY: FOUNDING OF LEXINGTON, FAYETTE COUNTY, KENTUCKY

Transcribed from History of Lexington Kentucky
Its Early Annals and Recent Progress
By George W. Ranck
Publ: Cincinnati, Robert Clarke & Co, 1872

Pg. 26

Lexington was founded in the midst of a mighty revolution, and her founder was
a man suited to the time and born for the purpose.  Col. Robert Patterson was
of Irish parentage, and was born March 15, 1753, near Cove Mountain,
Pennsylvania.  He came to Kentucky in 1775, and settled at Harrodsburg, and in
that year, as we have already related, he visited Fayette county.  In 1776, he
assisted in building a fort at Georgetown.  During the years which intervened
between this time and the settlement of Lexington, he figured conspicuously as
a gallant Indian fighter.  As Captain Patterson, he served under Clark in his
expedition against the Shawanese, on the Little Miami.  He was promoted to a
colonelcy for important services, and was second in command in the terrible
battle of Blue Licks.  He was badly wounded in 1786, while with General Logan,
in his expedition against the Shawanese towns.  Subsequently, he became the
owner of a third of the original town plot of Cincinnati, and may be called
the founder of that city also.  In 1783, Col. Patterson built him a log house,
on the southwest corner of Hill and Lower streets, near or on the site of the
present residence of S. T. Hayes.  The large tract of land owned by Col.
Patterson in that part of the city, included the present property of M. C.
Johnson.  The log house was, in course of time, succeded by a substantial
two-story stone one, which stood there for many years.  In 1804, Col.
Patterson removed to Dayton, Ohio, where he died, August 5, 1827.  In person,
Col. Patterson was tall and handsome.  He was gifted with a fine mind, but
like Boone, Kenton, and many others of his simple-hearted pioneer companions,
was indulgent and negligent in business matters, and, like them, lost most of
his extensive landed property by shrewd rascals.

Those who aided Col. Patterson in founding Lexington are not to be forgotten;
and of these, none are more worthy of mention than John Maxwell.  He was born
in Scotland, in 1747, and was brought to America by his parents while in the
fourth year of his age.  He was one of the early adventurers in the wilds of
Kentucky, arriving before a solitary station or even a cabin existed within
its limits.  In pioneer days, he owned a large part of the land now included
in the city limits of Lexington, but, true to the old hunter nature, it
rapidly slipped from his grasp.  He and Sarah, his wife, were the first
persons married within "the fort".  John Maxwell was the first coroner of
Fayette county; was one of the original members of Dr. Rankin's Presbyterian
church; was one of the founders of the old St. Andrew's Society, and from him
"Maxwell's spring" gets its name.  This useful and greatly respected citizen
died in 1819, and was buried in what was then "Maxwell's Graveyard," but which
now forms part of the neglected old City Cemetery, on Bolivar street, in which
stands the "Mission Church."

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