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FINCASTLE SURVEYS
The Fincastle surveys were performed by surveyors from Fincastle County, which was formed in 1772 out of Botetourt, Virginia. Fincastle County included all the territory south and west of the Kanawha River, south of the Ohio River, and north of the unsurveyed dividing line with North Carolina. The borders were also to include all of Virginia’s population transmontane claims. In response to the growing population on the frontier, Virginia created the new county named after its governor, Lord Dunmore, viscount of Fincastle, to extend governmental control in the West.
Most of the surveys were made in what is now Kentucky. Nearly all the surveys that resulted in land grants were authorized by military warrants issued to veterans of the French & Indian War. In April 1774, a company of deputy surveyors, including John Floyd, Hancock Taylor, James Douglas, and Isaac Hite, left Smithfield, Virginia and traveled down the Kanawha and Ohio Rivers, making surveys of about 40,000 acres, which covered all of present-day Louisville and as far south as Prospect. On June 3rd, the surveyors split into two groups. The one headed by Hancock Taylor visited Harrodsburg, then began surveying near Frankfort on June 17th. The second party, headed by John Floyd, rejoined Taylor on July 1st at his camp near present-day Midway, Kentucky. Here they split into three parties, the third headed by James Douglas and Isaac Hite. Floyd surveyed along the North Fork of Elkhorn, Taylor along the South Fork of Elkhorn, and Douglas along Jessamine and Hickman Creeks. In this area they made 62 surveys of about 113,000 acres.
The surveyors had intended to meet again at Harrodsburg, but an attack there by Indians on July 8th caused each of the surveying parties to return home by a different route. The Indians ambushed Taylor’s company on July 27th, killing the leader and another man (James Strother). The survivors were escorted by Daniel Boone and Michael Stoner, scouts who had been dispatched for that purpose. Floyd and his companions returned by an Indian trail that led up to the North Fork of the Kentucky River and through Pound Gap. Douglas’ company returned by paddling their canoe down the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers to New Orleans and taking passage on a ship to Virginia.
Deputy Fincastle County surveyors continued to work in Kentucky during 1775 and 1776 and eventually surveyed a total of 206,250 acres on old military warrants within the central part of the state.
- Note:
(1) “Fincastle Surveyors in the Bluegrass, 1774”, Register 70 (Oct 1972), pgs. 277-294 by Neal Hammon.
(2) “Fincastle Surveyors at the Falls”, FCHQ, Jan 1973), pgs. 268-283 by Neal Hammon.
(3) Taylor’s last will, dictated to comrade, Abraham Haponstall, is dated, July 29th, 1774. (Died of wounds suffered when shot in back and shoulder).
- Transcribed by William D. Park & Bryanna N. Park from the Kentucky Encyclopedia,
- pg. 318-219 on 27 Jul 2005 and source papers in our library.
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