Category:Isaac Ruddell's Station

Isaac Ruddell's Station (1775-1780) - This station had a short but colorful history. John Hinkston first established a settlement here in 1775 with fifteen cabins but Indians caused its abandonment fifteen months later (1). John Townsend on Townsend Creek and John Cooper on Cooper's Run reportedly raised corn to supply the station's seed for the 1776 crop. Some other early inhabitants included William Kennedy and Thomas Dunn (2). Simon Kenton and Thomas William spent the winter of 1776-1777 and helped to build a blockhouse here (3).

The site was enlarged and fortified by Isaac Ruddell in April, 1779 and became known as Ruddell's Station. A great many people lived here and at Martin's Station in 1780 when both sites were captured by the British and Indians under Captain Byrd. Drake (4) lists the following settlers who were among the residents at the time of the attack:

A large number of settlers were taken prisoner and marched to Fort Detroit in Canada. Twenty were killed on the spot and later buried in a mass grave by piling stones over their bodies. Matthias Lair and his brother, John Lair, settled on the property after the Revolutionary War and in 1845 a Lair descendant gathered the bones of the massacre victims and placed them in the Lair family crypt where they remain today.

Location:

Lat: 38.3351 Long: -84.2749

The station site is located southeast of Cynthiana, Kentucky, on private property, off the old Lair Pike on the east bank of the South Fork of the Licking River. No public access.

Sources:

• Nancy O'Malley, Stockading Up, pages 241-244

References:

1. Ardery, Julia Spencer. Bourbon Circuit Court Records. Register of the Kentucky Historical Society. 1939:11; Lafferty, 1957:13; Perrin, William Henry. History of Bourbon, Scott, Harrison and Nicholas Counties, Kentucky. O.L. Baskin & Company, Chicago. 1882
2. Staples 1934
3. Kenton, Edna. Simon Kenton, His Life and Period. Doubleday, Doran and Co. Garden City, N.Y. 1930:76
4. Drake 1942:2115-216