Madison County, Kentucky

Madison County, established in seventeen eighty-five from a portion of Lincoln County, Virginia, holds one of the founding stories of Kentucky. Daniel Boone and Richard Henderson established Fort Boonesborough on the Kentucky River here in April of seventeen seventy-five , one of the first significant English-speaking settlements west of the Appalachians. The county was named for Virginia statesman James Madison, who would become the fourth president.

When Kentucky achieved statehood in seventeen ninety-two, thirty-three Madison County citizens offered the new Commonwealth substantial land and money to make Boonesborough the state capital. The offer was refused. Boonesborough declined rapidly after that, its population draining away.

Richmond became the county seat instead, and Boonesborough survives today only as a state park where costumed interpreters reconstruct the log fort , a place of enormous historical weight now quietly outraced by history.