4
HISTORICAL SKETCH
Knox County, the forty-first county to be organized in Kentucky, was
, formed out of a part of Lincoln County by an act of the Kentucky Legislature
in 1799. The statute creating the county reads in part, as follows: "All
that part of the county of Lincoln, included in the following boundaries, to
_ wit; Beginning where the Pulaski line strikes the Tennessee line, and with
said line east to thc top of Cumberland Mountain; thence along said mountain
to the line of Madison County, and with the same to a point due east of the
mouth of the branch of the Kentucky River that the Wilderness Road goes down;
thence up the said branch to the said road; thence with the said road to the
aforesaid Madison line, and with the same to the head of Rockcastle River,
and down the said river to the Pulaski line, and with the Pulaski line to the
beginning, shall be one distinct county known by the name of Knox" (Littcll,
lappmpf Kentucky, vol. 2, p. 298, approved December 19, 1799).
Since the original formation of the county, there have been eleven al-
terations in the Knox County boundaries. The first re-marking in 1804
(ibid., vol. 5, p, 182, approved December 12, 1804) was followed by a sec-
ond and third change in 1820 (Acts of the General Assembly of 1819-20, ap-
proved February 4, 1820, and December 2, 1820}, and another in 1825 (ibid.,
1825-24, p. 554, approved December 16, 1825). Eleven years later, the boun-
daries were again altered (ibid., 1854-55, p. 554, approved January 24, 1854);
in 1858 another change was made (ibid., 1858-59, p. 105, approved January 27,
1858), Five other alterations of Knox County lines followed (ibid., 1851-52,
p. 515, approved January 1, 1852; ibid., 1855-56, p. 55, approved February
16, 1856; ibid., 1864-65, p. 75, approved March 2, 1865; ibid., 1871-72, p.
74, approved March 27, 1872; ibid., 1875-76, p. 574, apprE§EE February 25,
isvs).
The present boundaries of Knox County are as follows: on the north,
laurel and Clay; on the east and south, Bell; and on the west Whitley and
Laurel counties.
Two men by the name of Knox were prominent in public affairs at the
time the county was created, rnd there is no specific information that would
establish which one the legislature had in mind. Purely circumstantirl nvi-
dence slightly favors Colonel James Knox, who was more intimately connected
with pioneer Kentucky than G »;.,· n »..~ ral Henry Knox.
General Henry Knox was born in Boston, Massachusutts, July 25, 1759.
No received recognition from the Trcsident of the United States and Congress
for his services during the Revolutionary 'cr, and in 1785 was appointed
secretary of war. In 1794 he retired to his estate in Maine (Richard Collins,
history of Kentucky, vol. 2, p. 456).
Colonel James Knox was also a soldier during tht Revolutionary ”ar, h‘v—
ing served in the Revolutionary Army as a major. Kc belonged to that group
of adventurers usually referred to as the "Long Huntors", and settled in Ken-
4 tucky in 1772 (ibid., vol. 2, p. 418). Ha had traveled through erstern K¤n-
tucky, going up_th5 Laurel River ind "starting wtstwdrdly, crossed the Rock-
cistle River" in 1769 (ibid., vol. 2, p. 417). At the time the general as-
Fi-61-7