249 years since the Declaration of Independence… and here at the Forks of the Licking, that fight still echoes.
Before there was a town called Falmouth, before a county line or a courthouse square, there were just people and this land. Right at the meeting of the Licking River and its South Fork, families were already starting to stake claims. It was wild country, but it was drawing folks in by the mid-1700s. Around 1776, when the Declaration of Independence was being signed in Philadelphia, settlers were already slipping into this part of Kentucky building cabins, planting roots, and trying to hold ground they barely had time to clear.
The Forks Meant Something. The Forks of the Licking weren’t just a pretty spot. They were tactical. Indigenous nations, Shawnee, Cherokee, Chickasaw had used this land for generations. It was hunting ground, travel route, and stronghold. And when the colonists started coming, that made it the edge of a fight that wasn’t going to be solved with ink and parchment. This place wasn’t neutral. It was watched, crossed, and defended by everyone who had a reason to call it theirs.
Even though there wasn’t a Revolutionary War battle here, this part of the frontier wasn’t left alone. British agents were arming Native allies and encouraging raids throughout Kentucky. Settlements just upriver like Ruddle’s Station and Martin’s Station, were attacked in 1780 by a mix of Native warriors and British-led forces. That’s just a few counties away. So you know the tension ran right through the forks.
If you were a settler here around that time, you weren’t just farming , you were watching the woods and sleeping with a musket by the door. Falmouth wasn’t officially founded until 1793, but people were here long before that.
By the 1780s, families were already building near the water and naming creeks. They weren’t drawing city limits yet, they were just trying to stay alive.
And by July 4, 1799, just 23 years after the Declaration was signed, Pendleton County officials held their first real government meeting. They chose William Mountjoy as clerk. That happened just steps from where the rivers meet, the same spot where traders, families, and scouts had been coming through since before the revolution even ended. Walk near the Forks of the Licking, and you’re standing where survival was the celebration.
Visit the Old Riverside Cemetery, and you’ll find graves of men who fought in every war since then, some may have lived through the chaos of the frontier days. Head over to the Pendleton County Historical Museum and you’ll see names that were here before Falmouth ever had a name. Even the Charity Southgate House, built by a woman who earned her freedom, stands as proof that independence means a lot more than just fireworks and barbecue.
This land doesn’t forget. It doesn’t shout its history, it whispers it, slow and steady, like the rivers that shaped it.
249 years since the Declaration of Independence…
And the Forks of the Licking are still standing.
Still watching.
Still whispering.
Whisper One Out