18th century Harrodstown (originally called ''Harrod's Town'') was laid out and founded by
James Harrod on June 16, 1774. Harrod led a company of adventurers totaling 31 men, beginning in the spring of 1774 at
Fort Redstone in Pennsylvania down the
Monongahela and
Ohio Rivers in canoes and through a series of other rivers and creeks to the town's present-day location. Later that same year, amid
Dunmore's War,
Lord Dunmore sent two men to warn the surveyors of imminent
Shawnee attacks,
Daniel Boone and Michael Stoner, who are said to have completed the round trip of 800 miles in 61 days. Regardless, the pioneers remained for a few weeks until a man was killed by the natives, when the settlement was abandoned and resettled the following year by March. It was one of three settlements in present-day Kentucky at the time the
Thirteen Colonies declared independence in 1776, along with
Logan's Fort and
Boonesborough. Also known as Oldtown, Harrodstown was the first seat of Virginia's
Kentucky (1776),
Lincoln (1780), and
Mercer (1785) Counties upon their formations. It remains the seat of
Mercer County in Kentucky. A census taken between Dec. 16, 1777, and Oct. 16, 1778, James Harrod,
Hugh McGary, Isaac Hite and his cousins,
Isaac and
John Bowman, David Glenn, along with his brother
Thomas, and Silas Harlan, with his brother James, had accompanied Harrod on his initial expedition in 1774.
19th century The
Kentucky General Assembly incorporated Harrodsburg in 1836.
20th century Pioneer Memorial Park (now Old Fort Harrod State Park) was opened on June 16, 1927. In 1936, President
Franklin Delano Roosevelt honored the city with a monument honoring the "first permanent settlement west of the Appalachians". ==Geography==