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Isaac Ruddell enlarged this station in 1779. It had been first built by John Hinkston in 1775 on a broad flat ridge above the South Fork of the Licking River along an old game trail from McClelland’s Station (Scott County) to the Lower Blue Licks. The settlers that built the station built 15 crude cabins and in 1776 - 1777 Simon Kenton and Thomas Williams helped add a blockhouse.
But Indian threats caused it’s abandonment. That is until Isaac Ruddell returned there in 1779. Other settlers built an additional station just a few miles away and called it Martin’s Station.
In 1780 Capt. Henry Byrd advanced on these two settlements with both British and Indian troops and for the first time on the Kentucky frontier they brought artillery. Setters knew they had little chance of holding out against a cannon and surrendered to the forces with assurances from the British that they would be captured and not killed. Byrd had promised his Indian allies part of the plunder in return for not killing the settlers. But 20 were killed on the site and the remainder of both settlements were forced to march on foot to the British stronghold at Detroit. Those that survived the march were kept prisoner there until the end of The Revolutionary War.
Byrd had planned a much larger attack on all of the Kentucky settlements, but realizing he had lost control of the situation with the Indians lost heart and returned to Detroit. If not, this 1780 attack could have drastically changed the situation in the Kentucky territory.
Information obtained from The Kentucky Encyclopedia
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