BOURBON COUNTY, KENTUCKY

Source: "Stockading Up" by Nancy O'Malley. Kentucky Heritage Council, University of Kentucky Program for Cultural Assessment, April 30, 1987, pp. 72-75.

This station was established as an improvement in 1776 by William McGee (Wilson 1923:68; Virginia Survey Book 9, pp. 175-176). Drake (1942) placed this station near the present Georgetown Road, between McGee's Fork and McClure's Run, both tributaries of Cooper's Run (although unnamed on the topographic map). It was apparently inhabited for several years by various people including Abijah Woods (in 1776), Roger Clements (1781), Ralph Raybourne (1781), Joseph Proctor (1782), Dawson and James Wade (1784), John McGuire (soon after 1779), David McGee and possibly others.

While little is known of the station occupation, the McGee landholdings were involved in four related land disputes. McGee's land grant included a 400-acre settlement and a 1000-acre preemption. The survey plat (Virginia Survey Book 9, pp. 175-176) indicated that the east fork of Cooper's Run was to run through the middle of the tract. The settlement was to begin on a line of Robert Whitledge's settlement line, run with that line to Thomas Whitledge's line, then connect with Thomas at another corner. The survey was performed September 6, 1783, returned August 13, 1785 and the grant issued August 20, 1786. Several other men made claims in the same area which led to a series of court suits in the late 18th century.

In the May term of 1794, Thomas Whitledge brought a suit in chancery to the Court of Appeals against Thomas M'Clanahan (Hughes 1898:149-51). Whitledge had obtained a certificate on December 27, 1779 for a settlement and preemption on the middle fork of Cooper's Run at a small spring marked by John Townsend's initials by virtue of raising a crop of corn in 1776. He established residence on this land (although at another spring) and was living there at the time of suit.

The conflict arose over Thomas M'Clanahan's entry which, as assignee of Daniel Wilcoxen, was based on a certificate dated June 10, 1780 for a settlement and preemption on the dividing ridge between the Big Fork of Elkhorn and Cooper's Run to include a sinking spring. Wilcoxen had based his claim on actual settlement at the location since 1777. M'Clanahan, on the basis of Wilcoxen's certificate which postdated Whitledge's, had his land surveyed and obtained his patents at an earlier date than Whitledge. Whitledge alleged that M'Clanahan had surveyed contrary to location by failing to place the preemption all the way around the settlement. M'Clanahan countered that Whitledge failed to place the spring marked JT in the center of his settlement, according to proper survey conventions. After reviewing depositions, the court ruled in favor of Whitledge and he recovered a corner of M'Clanahan's preemption. McGee's tract was not brought up in this case although a subsequent suit showed that it clearly conflicted with M'Clanahan's claim.

In the October term of 1799, Thomas Whitledge again acted as complainant against James Kenny, heir-at-law of Joseph Kenny. On April 26, 1780, Joseph Kenny had obtained a certificate for a settlement and preemption on Cooper's Run by virtue of raising a corn crop in 1776. The certificate further specified that the tract was to lie "below and adjoining William McGee's land, and on both sides of said run" (Hughes 1869:211). The certificate for settlement was entered with the county surveyor on June 21, 1780. Joseph Kenny died shortly thereafter, leaving James Kenny heir. James was prevented from surveying by virtue of Whitledge's preemption warrant which postdated Kenny's preemption entry. Kenny alleged that Whitledge had surveyed on his land and had included some 200 acres more than his legal quantity. Kenny said his preemption entry was made "in strict conformity to conditional lines agreed upon between him and the original improvers", that he "conceived himself bound by that agreement" and that "no person who afterward located such a claim as the complainant's, had a right to do so, as to interfere with that agreement" (Hughes 1869:212). This case occasioned a debate about surveying conventions which took up forty-six pages of text in the 1869 edition of James Hughes' compilation of important land suits. Insofar as it dealt with McGee's claim, the annexed plat, returned in the case, showed the relationship of McGee's land to Whitledge's, specified the location of his cave spring and his upper spring, showed the conflicting Kenny land and specified the locations of several other springs and landmarks. Facts agreed to by the parties revealed that William McGee improved at his cave spring and presumably established his station there. Continued debate raised the question of whether McGee had correctly surveyed his settlement and preemption. This point was important because both Whitledge and Kenny specified a relationship to McGee's land in their entries. After three interlocutory decrees (all based on different principles) had been returned in Kenny's favor, a final decree confirmed the original decree and Whitledge lost. An interesting omission in these cases is the ultimate fate of McGee's land. While the existence of the settlement and preemption was agreed, no indication of conflict between McGee and M'Clanahan, whose land overlapped, was discussed. McGee's claim boundaries were not even presented in the dispute between Whitledge and M’Clanahan. Even other disputes leading to two court cases in which M'Clanahan was complainant against Francis Berry and Solomon Litton, respectively, used McGee's Spring as a landmark but did not see fit to show the boundaries of his settlement and entry. Perhaps McGee gave up his right to the claim although such evidence was not found in the early Fayette Circuit Court Land Trials. Nevertheless, consideration of the returned plats in the two cases of Whitledge vs. M'Clanahan and Whitledge vs. Kenny allow for the location of William McGee's settlement and preemption and the cave spring at which he established his improvement, and, presumably, his station. Precise location of the resulting plat is made somewhat easier by the knowledge that Thomas McClanahan later left his land to his daughter Peggy who married Robert Johnston. Johnston built a tavern which is still occupied as a private residence. According to the reconstructed plats of McGee's, Whitledge's and McClanahan's land, the tavern was built at McGee's upper spring within the overlapping area between McGee and McClanahan. McGee's Station at his cave spring would have thus been located to the northeast. Implications in the historic records that the station was short-lived and that McGee did not retain title are assumed to mean that the station was probably no more than a few rough cabins and little in the way of archaeological remains may be left. The Thomas Garth house (designated Bb-61 in the Kentucky Heritage Council inventory) was built at the cave spring site about 1812. it is still standing. This site was not surveyed and its archaeological potential remains unknown.