On 25 May 1774, more than thirty men gathered at Fort Redstone, near present day Brownsville, on the Monongahela River. They had planned a long journey by water to the region which became known as Kentucky. Their craft were log canoes and the route was the Monongahela to the Ohio River, to the Kentucky River, which flowed from the south into the Ohio. They ascended the Kentucky River more than ninety miles. Overland from the Kentucky River a short distance, they built Kentucky's first permanent settlement of Europeans, later to be called Harrodsburg, after the leader of the group, James Harrod. Obviously, the trip had been planned, the result of earlier survey trips.
The men built small cabins, staked claims, and surveyed land. Before summer was out, James Knox brought news from the east that hostilities with the Shawnee nation were imminent and Lord Dunmore, the Virginia governor, was calling out the militia. Fearing for the safety of their families the men had left behind around Fort Redstone, they returned home. Hostilities were brief and the men returned to Kentucky in 1775. By then others had joined them.
Back in North Carolina, Judge Richard Henderson saw Kentucky as an opportunity for private exploitation. Joining with others in the "Transylvania Company", he pretended that he had purchased a large part of Kentucky from the Indians. This was in direct violation of the 1763 order of the King that forbid private negotiations with the Indians for land. Henderson had some good knowledge of the region because he had earlier hired Daniel Boone as an explorer. Now he had Boone establish a permanent settlement at Boonesboro and blaze a trail to the settlement from the eastern regions (which became known as the Cumberland Gap).
Henderson set up a land office at Boonesboro and proceeded to sell land. He regarded all settlers who had not purchased their land from him as trespassers. One problem facing Henderson was that the group who founded Harrodsburg a year earlier had a prior claim. In December of 1775, James Harrod and his group prepared a petition to the Virginia Assembly protesting Henderson's actions. This was signed on March 15 and delivered to the Virginia convention on May 18 of 1776. A similar action by George Rogers Clark to Patrick Henry the next month led to action by the assembly which ended the Transylvania company's actions.
Among the signers of the March 15, 1776, petition were the names Adam Smith, Henry Thomas, Michael Thomas, Samuel Thomas, and John Hardin. There was another Thomas signer, a Moses, but he was probably unrelated to the previous Thomases who might be considered as sons of Michael Thomas, previously of Culpeper County, Virginia, but now a resident in the neighborhood of Ten Mile Creek. Adam Smith was the son of Anna Magdalena Thomas, the sister of Michael Thomas (Sr.). So Adam was a cousin to the Thomas men. Adam had a daughter, Susanna, who was to marry (or was married to) Michael Thomas (Jr.) who was probably the name on the petition. The march of Germanna citizens to Kentucky had begun.
We gratefully acknowledge the work of John Blankenbaker who published over 2,500 Germanna History Notes via the Germanna-L@rootsweb.com email list from 1997 to 2008. We are equally thankful to George Durman (Sgt. George) for hosting the list and republishing the notes via rootsweb.com.