DANVILLE

A short history of Danville

Ephraim McDowell completed the first known successful laparotomy here in 1809, removing an ovarian tumor from a woman patient without anesthesia.

It is the home of Centre College, housing the oldest college administration building and campus west of the Allegheny Mountains.

Danville was part of the Great Settlement Area around Fort Harrod (present-day Harrodsburg), which was first settled in 1774. The site was originally known as Crow's Station for settler John Crow, but the town was surveyed and platted by Walker Daniel, Kentucky's first district attorney, who bought 76 acres (31 ha) near the Wilderness Road from Crow in 1783. The city was named for Daniel. The Virginia legislature officially established Danville on December 4, 1787.

Between 1784 and 1792, ten conventions were held in Danville to petition for better governance and ultimately to secure independence from Virginia. In 1786 the Danville Political Club was organized. It met each Saturday night at Grayson's Tavern to discuss the political, economic, and social concerns of the day. After a state constitution was adopted and separation was confirmed in 1792, the town ceased to be of statewide importance. Its leading citizens moved elsewhere.

Transylvania University was founded in Danville in 1783. It moved to Lexington in 1789. Centre College was founded in 1819. Danville Theological Seminary was founded in 1853; in 1901 it became part of the Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary. The Caldwell Institute for Young Ladies was founded in 1860. It became Caldwell Female College in 1876, Caldwell College in 1904, Kentucky College for Women in 1913, and merged into Centre College in 1926.

In November 1806, Meriwether Lewis, co-leader of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, visited Danville while traveling the Wilderness Road to Washington, D.C., to report on the expedition, which had returned from the Pacific Coast. In December 1806, William Clark visited his nephews in school in Danville before following Lewis to Washington.

The first school in Danville for African-American children was founded around 1840 by Willis Russell, an emancipated slave of Robert Craddock, a Revolutionary War veteran. Craddock deeded a log house in Danville to Russell. He moved to the town after Craddock's death and started a school for children. The house on Walnut Street no longer stands, though what was once believed to be his house is now the Willis Russell Memorial Cabin. Russell's house stood across the street, opposite St. James African American Methodist Church.

In 1842, Boyle County was formed from southern Mercer County and northern Lincoln County. Danville became its county seat.

In 1850, Danville and Boyle County backed construction of the Lexington and Danville Railroad. Money ran out when the railroad reached Nicholasville. John A. Roebling had already built towers for a railroad suspension bridge over the Kentucky River. (Roebling lived in Danville during the construction.) Despite the railroad not being completed to Danville, the county still owed the company $150,000. It completed payment on time in 1884.

In 1860, a fire devastated the city, destroying 64 buildings and causing more than $300,000 in damages. Boyle County's courthouse was destroyed; its replacement was completed in 1862.

After the Union Army won the Battle of Perryville in the Civil War on October 8, 1862, it appropriated many Danville buildings, including the courthouse, for use as hospitals. On October 11, a Union force drove Confederate forces from the county fairgrounds through Danville.

In May 1864, the group of 250 – mostly enslaved males but including some freedmen – marched from Danville to nearby Camp Nelson in Jessamine County, where Colonel Andrew Clark allowed them to enlist In the Union Army after some initial hesitation. Arriving with wounds inflicted upon them en route, this group was the first to enlist at this site, where 10,000 United States Colored Troops trained.

In 1775, Archibald McNeill planted Kentucky's first recorded hemp crop at Clark's Run Creek near Danville. By 1889 Boyle County was one of the ten Kentucky counties which together produced more than 90% of the US yield. It was the state's largest cash crop until 1915, when it lost its market to imported jute.

From the turn of the 20th century through the 1960s, Danville was home to a thriving African-American business sector located on and around 2nd Street on the western edge of what is now Constitution Square Historic Site. The city demolished this business sector under urban renewal in the 1970s to provide for the expansion of Constitution Square Park.

On October 5, 2000, Dick Cheney and Senator Joe Lieberman, candidates for Vice President of the United States, debated at Centre College during the 2000 presidential election. On October 11, 2012, Centre College again hosted the Vice-Presidential debate, this time between Vice President Joe Biden and Wisconsin Representative Paul Ryan.

Adapted (trimmed) from the Wikipedia article Danville, Kentucky, revision 1382300482 by its contributors, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.