Lexington was founded in June, 1775, in
what was then Fincastle County, Virginia, 17 years before Kentucky became a
state. A party of frontiersmen, led by William McConnell, camped on the Middle
Fork of Elkhorn Creek (now known as Town Branch and rerouted under Vine Street)
at the site of the present-day McConnell Springs. Upon hearing of the
colonists' victory in the Battles of Lexington and Concord on April 19, 1775,
they named their campsite Lexington after the Massachusetts town. The risk of
Indian attacks delayed permanent settlement, though, for four years. In 1779,
Col. Robert Patterson and
