Brief History from THE KENTUCKY ENCYCLOPEDIA 1992

I thought I knew a lot about Ohio County history, but in the following short article I discovered something new to me - silkworms!

OHIO COUNTY, KENTUCKY

From THE KENTUCKY ENCYCLOPEDIA by John E. Kleber, Editor

Copyright 1992

Ohio County, the thirty-fifth county in order of formation, is in the Western Coal Field region of Kentucky.  It is bordered by Breckinridge, Butler, Daviess, Grayson, Hancock, McLean, and Muhlenberg counties and has an area of 596 square miles.  The county was established from part of Hardin County on Dec. 17, 1798, and was named for the Ohio River, which formed its northern boundary until Daviess County (1815) and Hancock County (1829) were created from it.  Hartford is the county seat.

The topography of Ohio County is undulating and well suited for agriculture.  County farms produce light and dark air-cured tobacco, soybeans, corn, cattle, and hogs.  An attempt was made at cultivating silkworms during 1842-48.  The principal waterways are Green River, Rough River, and various creeks.

Large burial mounds found along the Green River in the southern part of the county indicate that the area was once extensively occupied by prehistoric people.  Excavations there in the late 1930s by the University of Kentucky and the Works Progress Administration uncovered more than 1,200 skeletons at Indian Knoll. 

The first pioneers in Ohio County experienced several bloody encounters with the Indians, starting in the 1780s.  In 1790 Barnett’s Station (now Calhoun) was attacked and two children were killed.  Attacks continued into August of the same year.  After 1797 the raids ceased to be a danger.

            

Daniel Boone and Joseph Barnett were among the first surveyors in the region.  A Maryland Methodist minister, Ignatius Pigman, was a land speculator credited with bringing in a large number of settlers.  One of the first physicians in the county, Dr. Charles McCreery, arrived around 1807.

River traffic down the Green and Rough Rivers promoted the county’s growth.  Hartford became a riverport and mill town on Rough River.  On Green River, the major towns were Smallhous, Ceralvo, Rockport, and Cromwell.  The river traffic was disrupted during the Civil War and dealt a serious blow by the advent of railroads to the count in the 1870’s.

During the Civil War, Ohio County was the scene of intense guerrilla activity.  On July 21, 1864, a partisan force, commanded by Capt. Dick Yates, ambushed a detachment of Daviess County Home Guards at Rough River Creek, killing four of the Guard.  On February 20, 1865, a group of Grayson County Home Guards attacked an encampment of guerrillas near Hartford.  Six of the guerrilla force were killed and four wounded.  The most damaging event of the war in Ohio County occurred December 20, 1864, when Confederate Gen. Hylan B. Lyon’s troops captured the county seat of Hartford and burned the courthouse.

Extensive coal mining took place in Ohio County after the Elizabeth & Paducah Railroad (now the Paducah & Louisville) came through the county in 1871.  A second railroad, the Louisville, St. Louis & Texas, crossed through Fordsville and Hartford in 1890 but was abandoned in 1942 except for a line from Muhlenberg County to Centertown in western Ohio County (operated in 1990 by CSX Transportation).  The Illinois Central (now Illinois Central Gulf) completed a third line through the eastern part of the county in 1893, but it had been abandoned by the 1980’s.  In 1912 oil was discovered four miles east of Hartford, and since then Ohio County has consistently been one of western Kentucky’s leading oil-producing counties.

By 1986 the county economy was a mixture of coal mining, agriculture, and oil.  The county’s incorporated cities in order of size were Beaver Dam, Hartford, Fordsville, McHenry, Rockport and Centertown.  The unincorporated village of Rosine, which was established in 1872 eight miles east of Hartford, is best known as the birthplace of Bill Monroe, the “Father of Bluegrass Music.”  The population of the rural county was 18,790 in 1970: 21,765, in 1980: and 21,105 in 1990.

See McDowell A. Fogle, Fogle’s Papers: a History of Ohio County, Kentucky (Evansville, Ind., 1970); Harrison D. Taylor, Ohio County, Kentucky in the olden Days (Louisville 1926).

 By Ron D. Bryant

 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -  -<> - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Added information about early oil wells in Ohio County:

1912:

Hartford, Ohio County, first commercial oil from western Kentucky. Oil price is about $0.60 per barrel (Smith, 1968). According to Bushong (1970) [The well was located] "about 5 miles northeast of Hartford in Ohio County, near Concord Church. The first well was commenced on the A.A. Carter farm in November, 1911 and completed in July, 1912 and was about 1,750 feet deep. The operator was Western Kentucky Oil and Gas Company, organized by Mr. W.M. Barnard. Production was a lime formation just below the Devonian Black Shake, known in Kentucky as the Corniferous Sand. [(Note that) Foerste (1910, p. 78) provides an account of an oil producing well drilled in 1889 (in Ohio County).]

      This is a view of the Howard No. 1 (Ohio County) well which was drilled to a total depth of 1,740 feet in 1913. Note the boiler in the left foreground. Photo by W. R. Jillson.

 1926:

Significant oil production in Taffy, Ohio County. (Taffy is located about 7 miles north of Hartford)

Added information about silkworms:

Striped silk worms, full grown 5/13/1910. Univ. of KY Digital Collection:

Silkworm cocoons, 6/1/1905. Univ. of KY Digital Collection:

Silkworm cocoon on plants, 5/30/1905. Univ. of KY Digital Collection:

"Among the most stunning Shaker textiles are the silk kerchiefs produced by the Kentucky societies. They were worn by the Believers and also sold to the outside world. Western Shakers in Kentucky began practicing serculture (the art of raising silkworms and manufacturing silk) by 1816 and continued through the 1870s."

Source: Kentucky by Design: The Decorative Arts and American Culture, by Jean M. Burks - Copyright 2015

From the Nature Conservancy: "Did you know there was an effort to establish a silkworm industry in colonial United States? Silkworms, or the caterpillars of the domesticated silk moth, were an important economic commodity in eastern Asian countries, particularly in China, as a producer of raw silk. Along with importing the silkworms, colonists also brought white mulberry trees whose leaves were the silkworm's food of choice. Unfortunately for our early settlers, the climate was not compatible for cultivation and the silkworm industry failed. The white mulberry tree, however, thrived and has spread throughout the States."

There is a book from 1840 titled, Burlington Silk Record, published in Burlington, New Jersey, that goes into detail about the silk industry in the United States. It appears that the publisher was in the business of selling silk worm eggs. Kentucky is mentioned in this book, but not Ohio County.

The following is an excerpt from "Historical Collections of Ohio" by Henry Howe, copyright 1888, and is about the State of Ohio, not Ohio County, KY, but contains the following about the silkworm industry: