The Big Spring

During a surveying trip, James Harrod led a group of men from their landing point on the Kentucky River to this very site, which he determined to be the best location for the new settlement. Under a sprawling Elm tree that stood about 100 yards downstream, the men laid down their packs, made a fire, relaxed, and enjoyed their first meal on the site of the township they would develop. Soon it became their evening routine to gather under the Elm adjacent to the spring, having spent the day exploring, scouting and surveying the new land. Importantly, though John Lythe of the Church of England has been noted as the first preacher in Kentucky (April 1775), it was under that same Elm tree that Rev. Thomas Tinsley and Rev. William Hickman preached the first Baptist sermon in Kentucky on May 1775.