In this study of Kentucky pioneer life, Charles R. Staples creates a colorful record of Lexington's first twenty-seven years. He writes of the establishment of an urban center in the midst of the frontier expansion, and in the process documents Lexington's vanishing history. Staples begins with the settlement of the town, describing its early struggles and movement toward becoming the "capitol" of Fayette County. He also presents interesting pictures of the early pioneers and their livelihood: food, dress, houses, cooking utensils, "house raisings," religious meetings, horse races, and other types of entertainment. First published in 1939, this reprint provides those interested in the early history of Kentucky with a comprehensive look at Lexington's pioneer period. Staples recreates a time when downtown's busiest streets were still wilderness and a land rich with agricultural potential was developing commercial elements. Because he wrote during a period when much of pioneer Lexington remained, he provides a wealth of primary information that could not be assembled again.

In this study of Kentucky pioneer life, Charles R. Staples creates a colorful record of Lexington's first twenty-seven years. He writes of the establishment of an urban center in the midst of the frontier expansion, and in the process documents Lexington's vanishing history. Staples begins with the settlement of the town, describing its early struggles and movement toward becoming the "capitol" of Fayette County. He also presents interesting pictures of the early pioneers and their livelihood: food, dress, houses, cooking utensils, "house raisings," religious meetings, horse races, and other types of entertainment. First published in 1939, this reprint provides those interested in the early history of Kentucky with a comprehensive look at Lexington's pioneer period. Staples recreates a time when downtown's busiest streets were still wilderness and a land rich with agricultural potential was developing commercial elements. Because he wrote during a period when much of pioneer Lexington remained, he provides a wealth of primary information that could not be assembled again.

From the 1780s, when Louisville and Lexington were tiny clusters of houses in the wilderness, to the 1980s, when more than half of all Kentuckians live in urban areas, the growth of cities has affected nearly all aspects of life in the Commonwealth. These urban centers have led the state in economic, social, and cultural change. Cities in the Commonwealth examines the crises that have shaped the history of Kentucky's cities and sheds light on such continuing concerns as urban competition, provision of essential services, the importance of the arts, and the struggle for racial justice. By allowing contemporaries to tell much of the story in their own words, Allen J. Share conveys a sense of the exuberance and dynamism of urban life and thought in Kentucky.

Any student of American history knows of Washington, Jefferson, and the other statesmen who penned the documents that form the legal foundations of our nation, but many other great minds contributed to the development of the young republic's judicial system—figures such as William Littell, Ben Monroe, and John J. Marshall. These men, some of Kentucky's earliest law reporters, are the forgotten trailblazers who helped establish the foundation of the state's court system. In Writing the Legal Record: Law Reporters in Nineteenth-Century Kentucky, Kurt X. Metzmeier provides portraits of the men whose important yet understudied contributions helped create a new common law inspired by English legal traditions but fully grounded in the decisions of American judges. He profiles individuals such as James Hughes, a Revolutionary War veteran who worked as a legislator to reform confusing property laws inherited from Virginia. Also featured is George M. Bibb, a prominent U.S. senator and the secretary of the treasury under President John Tyler. To shed light on the pioneering individuals responsible for collecting and publishing the early opinions of Kentucky's highest court, Metzmeier reviews nearly a century of debate over politics, institutional change, human rights, and war. Embodied in the stories of these early reporters are the rich history of the Commonwealth, the essence of its legal system, and the origins of a legal print culture in America.

"Along the Maysville Road details the life of the trail from its beginnings as a buffalo trace, through its role in populating and transforming an early American West, to its decline in regional and national affairs. This biography of a road thus serves as a microhistory of social and cultural change in the Early American Republic."--Jacket.

From 1826 to 1829, John Bradford, founder of Kentucky's first newspaper, the Kentucky Gazette, reprinted in its pages sixty-six excerpts that he considered important documents on the settlement of the West. Now for the first time all of Bradford's Notes on Kentucky—the primary historical source for Kentucky's early years—are made available in a single volume, edited by the state's most distinguished historian. The Kentucky Gazette was established in 1787 to support Kentucky's separation from Virginia and the formation of a new state. Bradford's Notes deal at length with that protracted debate and the other major issues confronting Bradford and his pioneering neighbors. The early white settlers were obsessed with Indian raids, which continued for more than a decade and caused profound anxiety. A second vexing concern was overlapping land claims, as swarms of settlers flowed into the region. And as quickly as the land was settled, newly opened fields began to yield mountains of produce in need of outside markets. Spanish control of the lower Mississippi and rumors of Spain's plan to close the river for twenty-five years were far more threatening to the new economy than the continuing Indian raids. Equally disturbing was the British occupation of the northwest posts from which it was believed the northern Indianraids emanated. Not until Anthony Wayne's sweeping campaign against the Miami villages and the signing of the Treaty of Greenville in 1794 was tension from that quarter relieved. Finally, the Jay Treaty with Britain and the Pinckney Treaty with Spain diplomatically cleared the Kentucky frontier for free expansion of the white populace. John Bradford's Notes on Kentucky, now published together for the first time, deal with all of these pertinent issues. No other source portrays so intimately or so graphically the travail of western settlement.

Any biography of Henry Clay's 46 year political career quickly becomes entangled with his monumental, though youthful, political leadership of the War Hawks in urging the Madison Administration to arm the United States for war with Great Britain. He continued to advise in the war's progress and ended by being one of the five distinguished Americans to treat for peace with a difficult team of mediocre British envoys. There has been no detailed treatment of his major role in this early American war until this present work.