At this early date, schools were established in Kentucky and taught in the
stockade forts. A Mrs. Coons “kept” school at Harrod’s Station; John May
at McAfee, and a Mr. Doniphan at Boonesborough. Later, log cabin school
houses were built farther out into the settlements. The school boys were
required to carry guns with them to school, that they might be ready to
meet any danger. School books were rare and very expensive. The diligent
teacher would copy from his rare and expensive texts lessons to be learned
in the subject of arithmetic and other branches, often one copy serving a
whole family. In 1798, local school books appeared. The Kentucky Primer
and The Kentucky Speller were printed at Washington, the old county seat
of Mason county, and Harrison’s Grammar was printed at Frankfort in the
same year.
Twenty thousand acres of land were given by Virginia for the establishment
of Transylvania Seminary in 1783. Its first principal was the Rev. David
Rice, a pioneer Presbyterian preacher and a graduate of Princeton
University. In 1787 the institution was moved from near Danville to
Lexington. George Washington contributed liberally to the maintenance of
this school, and Lafayette, on his return to America, visited the school
and made a donation to its support. From this seminary grew the now famous
Transylvania University, Lexington, Ky.
In 1798 the Legislature of Kentucky donated six thousand acres of land to
each county then in existence, for the purpose of establishing county
seminaries. In many sections of the state these old pioneer buildings of
brick and stone may be seen today. These institutions did much for
education in their time.
Our Commonwealth had, even at this early period, produced an unusual
number of inventors of note. John Fitch, in 1786, first successfully
applied steam as a motor power to passenger boats. James Rumsey, the same
year, propelled a boat with steam. Edward West, in 1794, constructed a
model boat and propelled it by steam, on Elkhorn Creek, near Lexington. He
later invented the nail-cutting machine which made it possible to cut
nails rapidly from wrought iron, whereas they had formerly been hammered
out by hand. Thomas H. Barlow invented the Planetarium, an instrument by
which the movements of the earth and moon around the sun were shown.