LEXINGTON

Since its founding in 1779, Lexington has been one of Kentucky's major urban areas. Surveyors working along South Elkhorn Creek identified the site for a town in the spring of 1775. Tradition states that upon learning of the American victory in April of that year over the British at Lexington, Massachusetts, they vowed to return and establish a town named in honor of that historic battle of the American Revolution. Four years later Robert Patterson, who had been one of the surveyors, led a party of settlers from nearby Harrodsburg to the site and founded Lexington. Once the Revolutionary War and significant Indian hostilities came to an end, town leaders set about improving the town. Located in the heart of Kentucky's Bluegrass region and being its population center, Lexington thrived as a major intersection for roads through the state and was its fastest-growing town. When Fayette County was formed in 1780, Lexington was named its seat. Although Lexington was not selected as Kentucky's capital, the first state legislature assembled in the town during June 1792. By 1800 Lexington had become Kentucky's major urban center, boasting fine homes and estates, manufacturing and mercantile businesses, a university, a newspaper, and cultural attractions.

The combination of population, economic growth, and cultural and educational attainment resulted in town leaders proclaiming Lexington the "Athens of the West." In 1789 Transylvania Seminary (chartered in 1780 and originally opened in Danville, Kentucky) held its first classes in Lexington. In 1798 its name was changed to Transylvania University. It is the oldest university west of the Appalachians. The school struggled in its early years, but from 1818 to 1825 it thrived under the leadership of the Reverend Horace Holley. Its law and medical schools were among the best in the nation. Among its students during this period were future U.S. senator Henry Clay, future vice president John Breckinridge, and future associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court Thomas Todd. Lexington also had the first mental hospital west of the Appalachians. Incorporated in 1816 as Fayette Hospital, eight years later it became the state-funded Eastern Lunatic Asylum (later Eastern State Hospital), the second state-funded mental institution in America.

This climate of learning and public works was supported by an active publishing business. On 11 August 1787, the first issue of the Kentucky Gazette, Kentucky's first newspaper, appeared. From the Gazette office a variety of books, pamphlets, and broadsides were published in addition to the newspaper, including the Kentucky Almanac and early editions of the Acts and the Journals of the state legislature.

Business also thrived in Lexington. Its central location made it a major marketing and supply source for both agricultural, livestock, and manufactured products. In 1802 it boasted printing houses, powder mills, ropewalks, factories, stores with fine goods from the East, skilled artisans, and bustling inns and taverns. Some of Kentucky's earliest livestock, agricultural, and mechanical fairs were held in Lexington. The wealth and education centered in the town, together with its prosperity, fostered the establishment of a library, theater, dancing school, churches, and other institutions.

Lexington's importance was reflected in its rapid population growth. The ethnic composition of Lexington's population was primarily English, Scots-Irish, German, and Irish. African Americans also constituted a significant proportion of the population. The U.S. census for 1790 listed Lexington's population as 834. Ten years later it had increased to 1,795 (including 462 African Americans [439 of whom were enslaved], or 24 percent of the population), and in 1810 it was 4,326 (including 1,594 African Americans [of whom 1,509 were slaves], or 35 percent of the population). Growth continued, but albeit at a slower pace, over the next two decades to a reported 6,026 in 1830. This total included 2,286 African Americans (2,065 of whom were enslaved), or 34 percent of Lexington's population. The town's central Bluegrass location, in the heart of Kentucky's highest slave concentration, resulted in its becoming a major slave-trading center. The decades following 1830 witnessed Lexington's continued success and importance, although it lost its standing as Kentucky's preeminent town.

See alsoKentucky; Mental Illness .

bibliography

Staples, Charles R. The History of Pioneer Lexington, 1779–1806. Lexington, Ky.: Transylvania Press, 1939. Reprint, Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1996.

Wright, John D., Jr. Lexington: Heart of the Bluegrass. Lexington, Ky.: Lexington-Fayette County Historic Commission, 1982.

James J. Holmberg