- 4 - S
' (First entry, p. 115)
l. HISTORICAL SKETCH .
‘ _ Creation .
Heade County, the seventy-sixth to be established in Kentucky, was
formed from parts of Hardin and Breekinridge by an act approved December 17,
1825. The act creating the new county described it as follows; " All that
part of the counties of Hardin and Breekinridge contained in the following .
bounds: Beginning on the Ohio_River at a point halfway between the mouth of
Salt River and the mouth of Otter Creek; thence running so as to strike the
road leading from the mouth of Salt River to Leitchfield, at a point two
miles distant on the nearest point from the road leading from Elizabethtown
to the mouth of Salt River; thence a straight line to the mouth of Brushy
Fork of Otter Creek; thence a straight line to the Big Spring; thence a
straight line to Absolom Carr, Sr's., leaving said Carr's house in the new
county; thence a straight line to the lower end of Flint Island in the Ohio
River; thence up the same to the beginning, shall be one distinct county
called by the name of Meade, in honor of Captain James M. Meade, who fell
at the River Raisin."
Boundaries
As the Ohio River defines the northern part of Heade, it makes a pe-
culiarly irregular outline, giving a strange shape to the county. With an
area of approximately 192,640 acres, Meade today retains its original bound-
1 ary lines, although a legislative attempt to establish the county of Hansen
out of parts of Meade and Breckinridge Counties was made, but was defeated
{ in the House on February 10, 1870. (2) It is bounded on the north and
` northwest for about 5.8 miles by the hugo twisted bend of the Ohio River;
on the east by Hardin County; on the south by Hardin and Breckinridge
V§» Counties; and on the west by Brockinridge. (5)
. Territorial History
s . Long before the settlement of the county, the pioneers who first
,. reached this territory, which was included in the great bend of the Ohio
p and stretched from the mouth of Otter Creek to the mouth of Sinking Creek,
found a land stocked with game of all kinds. Countless deer and large herds
of elk and bison grazed on the barrens. Immense fertile areas covered with
~ grasses and clover furnished them excellent forage in summer; in winter,
they found ample food in the dense cane-brakes. Eumerous streams in the
wooded section ind thick forests and groves on the knobs supplied the wild
pa animals and fowl with water and protection. Flocks of wild geese and ducks
’, made their homes on the streams. Passenger pigeons, long extinct, whose
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