Two-hundred and fifty years ago, a group of land surveyors crossed the Kentucky River at Leestown on July 16, 1773, and entered the land they referred to as “the great meadow on the river.” At the request of fellow explorer Robert McAfee, surveyor Hancock Taylor made the first survey of what would later become the little town of Frank’s Ford. By the end of a series of events spanning just over two decades, the land surveyed by Taylor would emerge as the Town of Frankfort – the capital of the Commonwealth of Kentucky, the fifteenth state of the Union, and the county seat of Franklin County. To commemorate this special event at the City of Frankfort’s Centennial Celebration on October 6, 1886, a historic marker was placed at the initial site of Taylor’s survey. The marker was later recovered and rededicated by Jennie Chinn Morton of the Kentucky Historical Society and the National Society of The Colonial Dames of America in 1899, with a relative of Hancock Taylor’s present, and has since long stood at the corner of Ann Street and Main Street.
Join us in celebrating the 250th anniversary of this seminal moment in Frankfort’s history by attending a special symposium featuring presentations by an array of experts including Dr. William “Drew” Andrews (Kentucky Geological Survey), Tressa Brown (Kentucky Native American Heritage Commission), Kandie Adkinson (Office of the Secretary of State), and Amalie Preston (James Harrod Trust, and descendant of Robert McAfee). A Q&A session with the panelists will follow the presentations.
