BOURBON COUNTY, KENTUCKY

Source: "Stockading Up" by Nancy O'Malley. Kentucky Heritage Council, University of Kentucky Program for Cultural Assessment, April 30, 1987, pp. 66-67.

This station camp was built in what later became the city of Paris (Kentuckian-Citizen 1944) by Peter and James Houston in company with Daniel Boone and others. The most reliable information concerning the two Houston brothers and their activities comes from a manuscript written by Franklin Warren Houston, a prominent late 19th century descendant who compiled a family genealogy (a copy now in the possession of Mrs. Gladys Santen, Paris). The Kentucky branch descended from two brothers named Houseson in Scotland, who were early followers of John Knox and moved to Dublin (the original family home) to escape persecution. There they found even greater intolerance from their Houseson kinsmen which so incensed them that they resolved to change their surname and move once again. The choice was to be made between Houston and Huston, but, before they decided, the elder brother, Alfred, emigrated to America where he adopted the name Houston. By the time the younger brother, Abner, emigrated, he had adopted the spelling Huston. The Houston line appears to have emigrated to Kentucky in the form of Peter and James who came either in 1779 or October of 1780. They built "Ft. Houston" 100 yards northeast of the present courthouse on Houston creek near the Big Spring. The site became a common stopping-place for Ft. Boonesborough settlers who were hunting, or on their way to process salt. It apparently was no more than a rough camp. Various people, including the Houstons, inhabited the site for about three years. The spring has been commemorated with a stone marker which still stands on the bottom in which the camp was located. The site was not field surveyed and its preservation is unknown.

Peter and James originally purchased land from Judge Henderson of the Transylvania Company. When Henderson's right to his Cherokee land purchase was declared invalid, the Houston brothers had to repurchase their land. On Boone's recommendation, they eventually settled on Cane Ridge in the east-central part of the county and apparently never held title to their station location. According to a court case between William C. Webb and William Galloway et al. (Staples 1934:150-155; Fayette County Circuit Court Complete Record Book "E", p. 166), John Craig and Robert Johnson as assignees of John May (who was assignee of John Reed) acquired 1000 acres around and including the confluence of Stoner and Houston Creeks (Staples 1934:155; map in Webb vs. Galloway et al.).