At this early date, schools were established in Kentucky and taught in the stockade forts. A Mrs. Coons “kept” school at Harrod’s Station; John May at McAfee, and a Mr. Doniphan at Boonesborough. Later, log cabin school houses were built farther out into the settlements. The school boys were required to carry guns with them to school, that they might be ready to meet any danger. School books were rare and very expensive. The diligent teacher would copy from his rare and expensive texts lessons to be learned in the subject of arithmetic and other branches, often one copy serving a whole family. In 1798, local school books appeared. The Kentucky Primer and The Kentucky Speller were printed at Washington, the old county seat of Mason county, and [pg 23]Harrison’s Grammar was printed at Frankfort in the same year.

Twenty thousand acres of land were given by Virginia for the establishment of Transylvania Seminary in 1783. Its first principal was the Rev. David Rice, a pioneer Presbyterian preacher and a graduate of Princeton University. In 1787 the institution was moved from near Danville to Lexington. George Washington contributed liberally to the maintenance of this school, and Lafayette, on his return to America, visited the school and made a donation to its support. From this seminary grew the now famous Transylvania University, Lexington, Ky.

In 1798 the Legislature of Kentucky donated six thousand acres of land to each county then in existence, for the purpose of establishing county seminaries. In many sections of the state these old pioneer buildings of brick and stone may be seen today. These institutions did much for education in their time.

Our Commonwealth had, even at this early period, produced an unusual number of inventors of note. John Fitch, in 1786, first successfully applied steam as a motor power to passenger boats. James Rumsey, the same year, propelled a boat with steam. Edward West, in 1794, constructed a model boat and propelled it by steam, on Elkhorn Creek, near Lexington. He later invented the nail-cutting machine which made it possible to cut nails rapidly from wrought iron, whereas they had formerly been hammered out by hand. Thomas H. Barlow invented the Planetarium, an instrument by which the movements of the earth and moon around the sun were shown.