199

James Hughes.

A Report of the Causes Determined by the late Supreme Court for the District of Kentucky.

Lexington, KY: John Bradford, 1803
41 plates (some folding). xv, [1], 236 pages. 4to, contemporary calf, worn, front board detached; foxing, intermittent dampstaining, minor wear; signature of early owner John Eccles on title page, bookplate of frontiersman and War of 1812 veteran Nimrod H. Moore of Yellow Banks (Owensborough) on front pastedown, and later name of Thomas D. Evans on front board.

Kentucky County was founded as the westernmost portion of Virginia in 1776, and gained statehood in 1792. Overlapping land claims from royal grants, Revolutionary War bounties, Indian treaties, and a disputed southern boundary with Tennessee all tended to make property ownership unsettled. One famous example was Abraham Lincoln's family, which left three farms in succession due to property disputes, before moving to Illinois to find greater stability.

This book was an effort to untangle some of these problems by documenting 41 court cases from 1785 to 1801. It was also a very ambitious piece of printing for its time and place, including what are believed to be the first maps engraved west of the Alleghenies, one for each of the 41 cases. David Humphries was the engraver. The first map in the volume includes an inset engraving of a buffalo.

Several of the cases refer to Daniel Boone's brother Squire Boone. In a 1799 case described on page 103, one settler claims pre-emption of 1000 acres on Elkhorn Creek "including an old camp made by Daniel Boone."


Kentucky Imprints 180; Shaw & Shoemaker 4409 (listing 3 locations); Streeter sale, III:1637. One traced at auction since the 1967 Streeter sale.

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