castle 1810, Whitley 1818, Harlan 1819, Laurel 1825, Clinton 1835, Jackson 1858, Bell 1867; the Licking basin-Morgan 1822, Rowan 1856, Magoffin 1860, Menefee 1869.

Counties Dissociated from Central

The county unit was formerly much larger than at present. Included at different times, within the limits of Orange (1734), Augusta (1738), and Bottecourt (1769) Kentucky. counties, all of Kentucky, from 1772 until the close of 1776, was a portion of Fincastle County, Virginia. December 31, 1776, Kentucky County was formed, and as population increased this was gradually subdivided into nine counties. As a result, when Kentucky became a State in 1792 this mountain section was the outlying eastern extremity of four

Each Virginia county was a civil and military corporation entitled to a separate court, to justices of the peace, surveyors, a sheriff, constable, coroner, and militia officers. (Marshall, History of Kentucky, pp. 47-48.)

"Each county raised a certain number of troops, and because it was not convenient for the men to go many miles from home in assembling for purposes of drill, the county was subdivided into military districts, each with its company, according to rules laid down by the governor. The military command in each county was vested in the county lieutenant, an officer answering in many respects to the lord lieutenant of the English shire at that period. Usually he was a member of the governor's council, and as such exercised sundry judicial functions. He bore the honorary title of colonel, and was to some extent regarded as the governor's deputy; but in later times his duties were confined entirely to military matters." (Fiske, Civil Government in the United States, p. 64.)

Originally "the county court usually met as often as once a month in some convenient spot answering to the shire town of England or New England. More often than not the place originally consisted of the court house and very little else, and was named accordingly from the name of the county." (Ibid, p. 62.)

This county system was continued in Kentucky, and the small "shire" towns that have grown up retained for many years the county name (see pp. 128, 162) prefixed to "Court House." In the case of Harlan the name has continued to the present time, the latter phrase being omitted.

"Court day," which was formerly a holiday in Kentucky as in Virginia, when the residents of the county met upon the court-house green to trade, discuss public affairs, etc., has as society has grown more complicated lost its importance, except in the mountains, where it still retains muc' of its original significance, especially in the fall, when the roads are in the best condition.

Region the
Drainage Basin

of Five Rivers.

Rivers rise near Pound Gap, finally reaching the Ohio.

counties-Lincoln, formed in 1780, Bourbon and Madison, formed in 1785, and Mason, formed in 1788; their seats of government being situated in the Bluegrass country." By 1800 the district was included within Fleming, Pulaski, Floyd, and Knox counties. After that year the subdivision went on rapidly: Mitchell's map of Kentucky for 1834 shows some nineteen counties. Between 1850 and 1870 there was a gradual dissociation of the region from the central section of the State. Since 1870 the counties of this district, with the exception of a few along the western border, have been included within its own limits.

TOPOGRAPHY

The Cumberland Plateau has been dissected into a series of narrow winding valleys, separated by steep watersheds, which form five distinct drainage basins with a general southeast to northwest trend. Here it is that the head-streams of the rivers-the Licking, the Big and the Little Sandy, the Cumberland and the Kentucky—take their rise. Originating in the southeast, in the vicinity of Pound Gap, as mere rivulets, these rivers as they flow westward are swelled in volume until, becoming master streams along the margin of the plateau, they finally reach the Ohio. In the north several small creeks, such as Hood and Tygarts, are directly tributary to the Ohio, but with the exception of these, all of the streams are a part of one of the main basins. The region is thus covered by a complex

and Branches.

network of repeatedly branching forks and creeks, heading Innumerable Creeks against one another in cols and wind-gaps along the crests of the ridges.12

Ridges.

Mountain.

To the southeast there is a linear arrangement of the ridges. The Cumberland Mountain, a narrow straight Cumberland divide between the Cumberland and Tennessee rivers, entering from Tennessee extends in a northeasterly direction thirty-five miles to the neighborhood of Cranks Gap, where it leaves Kentucky and continues as Stone Mountain to Guest River in Virginia. The general elevation varies from 2,500 feet (Pinnacle) to 3,451 feet (White Rock). The gentlest slope is on the northwestern or Kentucky side, where the ridge rises from 1,000 to 1,400 feet above the local drainage. On the northeastern or Virginia side is a steep escarpment with overhanging cliffs, rising 900 to 2,000 feet above the adjacent valley of Powell's River. The crest of the mountain throughout its extent is markedly level, except where it is depressed by a number of windgaps-for example, Britton, Brierfield, Chadwell, Gibson, and Cumberland. None of these are more than 300 feet deep except Cumberland Gap, on the Tennessee-Virginia line, which is 864 feet deep and 1,636 feet above sea level. Streams head along the slopes, but nowhere cut through.13

* There are, however, a number of water-gaps in the Cumberland-Stone Mountain-Big Stone Gap and Pennington Gap, Virginia, and Big Creek Gap and Bruce's Gap, Tennessee. Cumberland Gap was probably a water-gap in a not very remote geological time, occupied by a branch of the Cumberland River, now a tributary of the Clinch River. (U. S. Geological Survey, Bulletin 111.)

Pine Mountain.

Black Mountain
Region.

From ten to twelve miles west of Cumberland Mountain and parallel to it is Pine Mountain, which extends 110 miles through Kentucky, terminating in the Big Sandy Valley. This ridge is likewise narrow and even-topped, but the elevation is less than that of the Cumberland. Averaging 2,500 feet, the altitude increases from 1,500-2,000 feet at the Kentucky-Tennessee line to 3,000 feet in the central portion, and decreases again to 1,500 feet in the northern part of Pike County. In contrast to the Cumberland the gentlest slope is on the southeast, and the

There is only one wind-gap

steep escarpment on the west.
of any depth-Pound Gap, 600 feet below the crest and
2,400 feet above sea level. Streams, however, break
through in narrow gorges at three points. Near the State
line in Bell County the gap is 1,000 feet and the crest
1,500-2,000 feet above sea level; at Pineville the gap is
980 feet and the crest 2,000 feet; at the Breaks of the Sandy,
in the northern extremity, the gap is 900 feet and the
crest 1,500-2,000 feet."

14

Between these two parallel elevations is the Black Mountain region, a mass of zigzag ridges with spurs and outliers projecting in all directions. The altitude, about 300 feet greater than that of the Cumberland, averages 3,500 feet, increasing from 3,000 feet along the Kentucky

The total length of the Cumberland-Stone Mountain is approximately 120 miles. About forty miles are in Tennessee, where the ridge terminates in the vicinity of Jacksboro. Pine Mountain has a total length of about 130 miles, terminating near Elk Gap, Tennessee.