Naming and Founding
In June 1775, a pioneer from Pennsylvania named William McConnell, his brother Francis McConnell, and their fellow frontiersmen were exploring the wilderness of the Virginia territory known as Kentucky. Like many other Scots-Irish settlers of the time, they were interested in acquiring land and improving their family circumstances. As they surveyed and mapped the land around the forks of the Elkhorn Creek, they build crude improvements that allowed them to stake claims to the land under the laws of Virginia at that time. William McConnell’s claim included the land around a “sinking spring” where the party had set up camp. It was at this encampment that the explorers received word from nearby Fort Boonesborough that the first battles of the American Revolution had been fought April 19, 1775 in Lexington & Concord, Massachusetts. In honor of this event, the group named their future settlement “Lexington”. The ensuing years were marked by raids and invasions by the British & Indians, but the influx of settlers from the East continued. In 1779 a permanent blockhouse was built, and in 1780 Lexington was named seat of Fayette County, Virginia, and in 1782 the town was chartered. Kentucky then became the 15th state to join the union in 1792.
| McConnell Springs in Historical Perspective, by Nancy O’Malley. A visit to McConnell Springs today exposes the visitor to a seemingly natural landscape, with springs bubbling to the surface and the dense tree canopy; a closer look reveals remnants of stone fence and foundations that hint at the cultural past of the place. Come travel through time and learn what McConnell Springs has been and how it came to be what it is today. Download this booklet, for more details of the park’s history: McConnell Springs in Historical Perspective |
More Lexington history.