Benjamin Linn
Early Kentucky Baptist PreacherBenjamin Linn made a trip at the behest of George Rogers Clark soon after his marriage July 9, 1777. Very soon the young scout was traveling with Clark, not just for him. On October 1, 1777 Clark set out from Fort Harrod for Williamsburg, the Virginia Capitol. His conferences with Gov. Patrick Henry would decide the fate of the Kentucky settlements.
Accompanying him were both Ben Linn and Samuel Moore, the Kaskaskia spies, and also Abraham Chapline (namesake of Chaplin, Ky.) Their hazardous trip along the Wilderness Road covered over 600 miles in 30 days.
Arriving in Williamsburg in early November, after visiting his father, Clark learned an audience with the Governor would require a wait of weeks. Finally, December 10, 1777 Gov. Patrick Henry heard the bold plan which would save Kentucky and add the Northwest Territory to the already vast area under Virginia’s dominion.
The true orders and exact mission were a well-kept secret but on January 2, 1778, Governor Henry publicly authorized Clark to enlist 7 companies to proceed to Kentucky. Their actual destination was known only to a handful of officials. It was to be Kaskaskia. The hair buyer Lord Henry Hamilton was in for a surprise. Ben Linn, with Moore and Chapline were named as Lieutenants for this expedition.
From Ritchie papers: John Ritchie, born in Scotland, 1752, came to America and landed in Virginia. He joined Ben Linn who was making up a company to defend themselves and families from the Indians. He met Linn’s sister-in-law, Jemima Quick of New Jersey. She and John married on the banks of the Licking River.
The story of George Rogers Clark’s amazing capture of Kaskaskia, Cahokia and Vincennes is well known and need not be recounted here for our purposes. Suffice it to say that Benjamin Linn was a member of that bold and desperate force of less than 200 men, who pulled off one of history’s most amazing military feats.
It is likely Benjamin Linn returned to Kentucky late in 1778 after the initial success of the summer campaign. Apparently sometime in 1779 Linn organized a party of settlers he would guide to an area where he had made some Improved Claims. He planned to settle his own land and establish a Station.
Descendants of those pioneers have handed down the facts concerning the preparations and actual trip made by the party under Linn’s leadership to us as oral history. Dr. M. L. Coomes, in his Filson Club paper on Linn, stated that 5 boats were constructed from huge poplar trees, 60 feet long and 5 feet wide. They were dug-out canoes and tradition says they embarked from some location on the Licking River (Linn had friends at several Stations on that stream.)
Tradition says the canoes ascended the Salt, Rolling Fork and Beech, after coming down the Ohio, and tied up at the mouth of Sugar Camp Run. Linn obviously knew well the region we now call Nelson County. The actual trip and building of Linn’s Station most probably occurred in the early spring of 1780 since high water was needed to get the canoes up the Beech fork.
Benjamin Linn was a Baptist preacher, at the close of 1780, there were one licensed and 5 ordained Baptist preachers in what is now the large and populous State of Kentucky, William Marshall, Joseph Barnett, John Whitaker, Benjamin Linn, James Skaggs and licentiate John Gerrard.
[Historical Marker 1114, Hodgenville, South Fork Baptist Church, US 31-E, Larue County]First Baptism in Kentucky Seven persons baptized in Nolin Creek, 1782, first in Ky., by Rev. Benjamin Linn, who founded South Fork Church, the second church in Ky. Originally at Phillips Fort, 13 members. Moved to South Fork of Nolin, where church was constituted and cemetery located. the Churches assumed the style of United, Separate, Regular and Missionary Baptists. Later they were split by slavery.
Linn was associated with both Severn’s Valley and the Cedar Creek churches during that period of time when worship services were conducted under guard because of Indian dangers. But his military career was not yet concluded either. He continued his militia duties and served under Clark again during the campaigns against the Indian towns in central Ohio.
For some reason Benjamin Linn left Nelson County. It must have been after the pioneer period, perhaps the late 1790s and may have had to do with land claims. An elderly lady who had known Linn recounted to Mr. Jerry Hagan (about 1855) folks did not treat Massa Linn right and he left the neighborhood on that account. Where he went from Nelson remains a mystery. Tradition holds that he died in 1814 in what is now Huntsville, Alabama.
=========================== [Taken from an article written by David Hall and published in the Kentucky Standard 1985, via the Internet. Scanned and formatted by Jim Duvall.]
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