By Berry Craig
Special to NKyTribune
If the Redcoats and the Minutemen hadn’t tangled at Lexington, Mass., on April, 19, 1775, the capital of the Big Blue Nation might be called McConnell Springs.
“A group of surveyors from Pennsylvania who wanted to establish a Presbyterian colony were camping here when they heard about the battle of Lexington from a rider from Boonesborough,” explained Steven Rogers, a staffer at Lexington’s McConnell Springs park.
So they named the spot “Lexington.”
Anyway, the McConnell bunch build a crude cabin and planted a corn crop (Berry Craig Photo)
A bronze plaque at park headquarters cites William McConnell as the group leader. Cool, bubbly springs drew the men to the site.
Lewis and Richard Collins’ 1874 History of Kentucky verifies the story of how the Fayette County seat came to be named.
The story’s source, according to the old book, was ex-Gov. James T. Morehead’s “thrilling historical address at the celebration in 1840 at Boonesborough of the first settlement of Kentucky.”
Named for Daniel Boone, Boonesborough sprouted in 1775. Harrodsburg traces its roots to 1774 and claims the “Kentucky’s oldest town” title.
Anyway, Morehead called McConnell and his men “a party of hunters” and said they heard about the battle of Lexington “while accidentally encamped on one of the branches of Elkhorn” creek between June 5 and 9.
The rest of the story jibes with the plaque, claiming the Pennsylvanians named their campsite in honor of “the first battle of the Revolution.”
Anyway, the McConnell bunch build a crude cabin and planted a corn crop. “To claim land, you had to improve it,” Rogers explained.
He added that the men didn’t stay long. “They left out of fear of Native American attacks.” Thus, the history book says “McConnell’s cabin…never attained the dignity of a station.”
According to The Kentucky Encyclopedia, the permanent settlement of Lexington started “in 1779, when Col. Robert Patterson led a group of Harrodsburg settlers to the location.” (History of Kentucky says McConnell evidently was among them.)
The Patterson party built Fort Lexington as a defense against British and Indian attacks, the encyclopedia says.
The Revolutionary War ended in American victory in 1783. In the years that followed, McConnell Springs became “covered by one of the most beautiful cities on the continent.”
Today, Lexington sprawls around the little park, the impetus for which started with a volunteer organization called Friends of McConnell Springs. They bought the property in 1993 and gave it to the city.
The 26-acre park preserves the artesian springs—Blue Hole, Boils and Final Sink—and includes walking trails, picnic tables and a meeting room inside the headquarters.
Volunteers also build a replica of what McConnell’s original cabin might have looked like.
“More and more people know that Lexington started here at the springs, especially people who move to town and want to find out where Lexington began,” Rogers said.
Berry Craig of Mayfield is a professor emeritus of history from West Kentucky Community and Technical College in Paducah and the author of six books on Kentucky history, including True Tales of Old-Time Kentucky Politics: Bombast, Bourbon and Burgoo, Kentucky Confederates: Secession, Civil War, and the Jackson Purchase, and, with Dieter Ullrich, Unconditional Unionist: The Hazardous Life of Lucian Anderson, Kentucky Congressman. Reach him at bcraig8960@gmail.com