In 1775 Hugh Shannon, Patrick Jordan, John Lee and others settled at what is now known as Lexington. It is recorded that Patrick Jordan found a spring down the fork on which they camped. Joseph Lindsey afterward paid Jordan two guineas to allow him to locate near the spring, and the first clearing was made there. This is now the garden spot of the Blue Grass region of Kentucky, where all the fine fast horses and the pretty women and good whiskey come from. In 1775 the first roasting ears were gathered from this clearing. John Haggin located there soon afterward, having come down the Ohio and up the Licking river to the settlement. There were probably other Irish people eating roasting ears in the Blue Grass region one year before the Declaration of Independence was read in Philadelphia, but their names have not been preserved. Certain it is that the people living in this settlement, first peopled by the Shannons and the Jordans, as soon as they heard of the Revolutionary battle of Lexington, Mass., named their settlement after that battle. They were certainly not English sympathizers to do this. In 1775 Ben. Logan settled where the town of Stanford is. Both his father and mother were born in Ireland. Logan was a companion of Boone. He planted the first corn in what is now known as Lincoln county, was a colonel in the militia, and was one of the most daring of the early pioneers. Daniel Boone, in 1775, found in Powell’s Valley, Richard Hogan, Hugh McGarry, Thomas Denton, and their families. These located afterwards at Harrodstown. Mrs. McGarry and Mrs. Hogan were the first white women to go up Salt river, which historic stream is now so frequently mentioned in connection with the defeated candidates after elections. The Hogans and the McGarrys have frequently “gone up Salt river” since, figuratively speaking, but the Indians were not waiting for them on the banks with a tomahawk as they were for Mrs. Hogan and Mrs. McGarry in 1775. People of Irish birth or extraction were pioneers in the educational line in this commonwealth, even before the Declaration of Independence. Bishop Spalding, in his notes on Kentucky, says that Mrs. William Coomes, an excellent Catholic lady, taught school in Harrodsburg in 1775. This was before a church or a court was opened in Kentucky. Smith, the historian, though not a Catholic, agrees with Bishop Spalding, and says that “in the year 1775 Dr. Hart and William Coomes settled Drennon Spring in Henry county, but afterward moved to Harrod’s Station. Dr. Hart practised medicine, and Mrs. William Coomes opened a school for children.” “Thus,” he observes, “the first physician and the first school teacher in Kentucky were both Catholics.” Whether they were Irish or not they got the credit as being of that race, as did all the Presbyterian Irish in the early history of the state get the reputation of being Scotch.