TIMELINE

• The Lexington Compact, also known as the “Articles of Agreement, formed by the people of the town of Lexington, in the County of Kentucky,” was signed by 45 founding settlers on January 25, 1780. Because walls surrounded it to protect it from the British and Indians, the town at Lexington was also known as Fort Lexington at the time. The Articles apportioned the land to each share by providing “In” lots of 1/2 acre and “Out” lots of 5 acres.

  The “In” lots were probably for the family living inside the fortifications, while the “Out” lots were presumably to be “cleared” for farming. (Corn is the only crop referenced expressly in the Articles.) Several of these early immigrants (maybe more) fought under General George Rogers Clark in the 1778–79 Illinois campaign (also known as the Northwestern campaign) against the British.

  While the nominal founder of Lexington, William McConnell, is not among the signees, Alexander McConnell is. Indians killed both John and Jacob Wymore outside the “Fort Lexington” walls less than two years after signing the Agreement.

  Historic Henry Clay law office in downtown Lexington

  A large caravan of roughly 600 pioneers from Spotsylvania County, Virginia, known as “The Travelling Church,” landed in the Lexington area in December 1781. The Travelling Church, led by preacher Lewis Craig and Captain William Ellis, established a number of churches, including the South Elkhorn Christian Church in Lexington.

  The town of Lexington was chartered by an act of the Virginia General Assembly on May 6, 1782. Peter Durrett, a Baptist pastor, and slave owned by Joseph Craig, founded the First African Baptist Church in Lexington around 1790. Durrett had accompanied “The Traveling Church” to Kentucky on its journey. This church is the third-oldest black Baptist congregation in the United States and the oldest in Kentucky.

  In the early 1800s, Lexington was a rising city of the vast territory to the west of the Appalachian Mountains; Josiah Espy described it in a published version of his notes as he toured Ohio and Kentucky:

  Lexington is the largest and wealthiest city in Kentucky and indeed west of the Allegheny Mountains; Lexington’s main street resembles Market Street in Philadelphia on a busy day. Lexington’s countryside stretches for miles in every direction, is as beautiful and fertile as anything the imagination can conjure up, and is already well-cultivated.

  Lexington planter John Wesley Hunt became the first millionaire west of the Alleghenies in the early 1800s. Henry Clay, a lawyer who married into one of Kentucky’s wealthiest families and served as Speaker of the United States House of Representatives in 1812, was a member of the War Hawks, a group of politicians who advocated for war with Great Britain to boost American exports.

  Six companies of Lexington volunteers arrived, with a rope walk-on James Erwin’s property on the Richmond Road serving as a recruiting office and barracks until the war ended. During the war, several Lexingtonians rose to prominence as officers. Captain Nathaniel G.S. Hart, for example, commanded the Lexington Light Infantry (also known as the “Silk Stocking Boys”) and was captured following the Battle of the River Raisin and died as a prisoner. In 1814, Henry Clay was a negotiator at the Treaty of Ghent.

  In 1833, the booming town was ravaged by a cholera outbreak that had spread over the Mississippi and Ohio valleys’ waterways: 500 of Lexington’s 7,000 citizens died within two months, including approximately one-third of Christ Church Episcopal’s flock. One of three clergies that lingered in the city to aid the suffering victims was London Ferrill, the second preacher of First African Baptist.

  Slaves were held as field hands, laborers, artisans, and domestic servants. Slaves in the city mostly worked as domestic servants and artisans, but they also worked for merchants, shippers, and a range of other trades. Tobacco and hemp were grown as commodity crops, while thoroughbred horse breeding and racing flourished in this portion of the state.

  By 1850, Lexington had the state’s greatest concentration of enslaved persons. The city also featured a large population of free blacks, many of whom were mixed race. The First African Baptist Church congregation, led by London Ferrill, a free black from Virginia, had grown to 1,820 by 1850. At the time, the First African Baptist Church had the greatest congregation of any church in Kentucky, black or white.

  20th century to present

  On September 1, 1917, a race riot erupted over tensions between the city’s black and white populations over the shortage of affordable housing. The Colored A. & M. Fair on Georgetown Pike (at one of the largest African American fairs in the South) had drawn more African Americans from the surrounding area into the city. During this time, some US National Guard troops were also camped on the outskirts of town. Three troops pushed customers onto the pavement in front of an African-American eatery. A brawl erupted, troops and citizens alike received reinforcements, and a riot ensued. The Kentucky National Guard was called in, and armed soldiers and police monitored the streets once the incident was over. Until the fair was over, all additional National Guard personnel were restricted from the city streets.

  Tensions erupted once more on February 9, 1920, this time over the trial of Will Lockett, a black serial murderer accused of killing Geneva Hardman, a 10-year-old white girl. When a large crowd gathered outside the courthouse where Lockett’s trial was taking place, Kentucky Governor Edwin P. Morrow mobilized National Guard troops to assist local police enforcement. The National Guard opened fire as the crowd approached the courthouse, killing six people and injuring 50 more.Fearing further retaliation from the mob,

  Morrow wanted the Army of the United States to help. Approximately 1,200 federal troops from nearby Camp Zachary Taylor went into the city the same day, led by Brigadier General Francis C. Marshall, to help National Guard forces and local police in restoring order and calm. For two weeks, Marshall imposed martial law in the city and stationed soldiers around the area. After being found guilty of murdering Hardman, Lockett was killed on March 11 at the Kentucky State Penitentiary in Eddyville.

  The Addiction Research Center (ARC) began as a modest research unit at the United States Public Health Service hospital in Lexington in 1935, during the Great Depression. The ARC was one of the nation’s first drug rehabilitation centers, and it was linked with a federal prison.. Expanded as the first alcohol and drug rehabilitation hospital in the United States, it was known as “Narco” of Lexington.The hospital was eventually modified to serve as part of the federal prison system, and it is now known as the Federal Medical Center, Lexington, and it caters to a wide range of health needs for inmates. In the late 1930s and early 1940s, Lexington was also the home of a packhorse library.