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(First entry, p. 2h)
1. HISTORICAL SKETCH
Carlisle County, the last of the eight counties to be formed from the
~ Jackson Purchase and the one hundred and nineteenth to be established in
Kentucky, was created in 1886 from the southern part of Ballard County.
On April 8, 188h, Albert W. Moreman of Meade County, representing the com-
mittee on Propositions and Grievances, reported a bill entitled, "A Bill
to Establish the County of Carlis1e," which was read and rejected. On
March 1, 1886, the bill to establish the County of Carlisle was read a
second time by William P. Thorne, and on April 5, 1886, the act creating
the new county was passed and approved. This act which was made effective
May 5, 1886, reads as fellows; "Be it enacted, that so much of the county
of Ballard as lies south of Mayfield Creek, and included in the following
boundary, is hereby created inte a separate county to be known as the Coun-
ty of Carlisle, to wit: Beginning in the center of Mayfield Creek, at the
county line of Graves and Ballard counties; thence down said creek with the
center of the channel thereof to the state line between the states of Ken-
tucky and Missouri; thence south with said line to the northwest corner of
Hickman County; thence east with the Hickman County line to where it inter-
sects with the Graves line; thence north with the Graves County line to the
beginning". (Acts of the General Assembly of Kentucky, 1885-86, Frankfort,
Kentucky, vol. 1, chT'H§5, p. El.) *—
Carlisle County was named in honor of John Griffin Carlisle, Lieuten-
ant Governor of Kentucky, 1871-75, who in 1890, four years after the county
was formed, became United States Senator, and during the administration of
President Grover Cleveland served as Secretary of the Treasury (Kentucky
Magazine, Louisville, Kentucky, September 1927). "~
The present boundaries of Carlisle County are the same as the original
ones, since no changes have been made at any time. It is bounded on the
north by Ballard County; on the east, by Graves County; on the south, by
Hickman County; and on the west, by the Mississippi River.
In 1780, the Chickasaw Indians were the undisputed owners of the terri-
tory west of the Tennessee River, including the ground at the mouth of the
Mayfield Creek in the northwestern corner of the present site of Carlisle
County, where Fort Jefferson was built in the summer of that year. Governor
Patrick Henry of Virginia had long desired to establish and fortify a post
near the mouth of the Ohio. Thomas Jefferson, the succeeding governor of
Virginia, in 1778, and again in 1780, urged the establishment of this post.
Consequently, General George Rogers Clark, with about two hundred soldiers,
left Louisville in the summer of 1780, proceeded down the Ohio and on down
the Mississippi to a point five miles below the mouth of the Ohio where May-
field Croek emptied into the river. There he erected a fort with several
bloekhouses which he called Fort Jefferson. (Richard H. Collins, History
EQ Kentucky, 2 vols., Louisville, Kentucky, 192h, vol, 2, pp. 59, HO; R. S.
Cotterill, History of Pioneer Kentucky, 1 vol., Cincinnati, Ohio, 19l7, pp.
162, 17h.) """ " ‘”_"‘ """"
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