BARREN COUNTY lies in the Green River district and was the thirty-seventh county in the State. It was formed in 1798, from Warren and Green Counties, and is bounded on the north by Hart, on the east by Metcalfe, on the south by Allen and Monroe, and on the west by Allen, Warren and Edmonson. Its name is derived from the "barrens"-- those vast treeless plains or prairies, common in southern Kentucky. It has considerable of this fine "barren" land, which, contrary to its name, is very productive, but the larger portion of the county is rolling, extending even into rugged and rocky hills. Most of the land, however, is fertile and highly productive. Tobacco is the principal crop, 2,305,586 pounds being produced in 1880, though grain is cultivated extensively, and much attention is likewise being paid to stock raising, which is becoming more and more valuable each.

Glasgow is the capital of the county, and is a town of about 1,500 inhabitants, by the last census (1880), and is yearly increasing in population and importance. It is situated eleven miles from the main line of the Louisville & Nashville Railroad, with which it is connected by a branch road. It has a court house, a number of fine buildings and business houses, several handsome churches and some beautiful and tasteful residences. A newspaper, the Times, is one of the flourishing papers of southern Kentucky. Other towns of the county are Cave City and Glasgow Junction (on the Louisville & Nashville Railroad), Hiseville, Park, Prewitt's Knob, Horsewell X Roads and Roseville.

Barren County produces petroleum abundantly, and only requires capital to make it an extensive and lucrative business. The census reports of 1880 show the annual production of petroleum in the county to be 5,376 barrels--the fourth largest yielding section in the United States; northwestern Pennsylvania being the largest; West Virginia and Washington County, Ohio, the second; Beaver County, Penn., the third; and Barren County, Ky., the fourth. A number of mineral springs, claimed to possess medicinal properties, are found in different localities. A white sulphur spring, some sixteen miles from Glasgow, on the Little Barren River, is said to be the strongest stream of mineral water in this section of the State.

The Louisville & Nashville Railroad (main line) passes through the northwest part of the county, and has a branch extending from Glasgow Junction to the city of Glasgow, the county seat. This road is projected east through the counties of Metcalfe, Adair and Casey, tapping the Cincinnati Southern in Lincoln County, and when completed, as it will be sooner or later, it will be of vast importance to the section through which it passes. The mineral wealth and material resource of the counties lying adjacent to the proposed route, will, at no distant day, compel the building of the road.

Caves, pre-historic remains, human bones and inscriptions upon trees, are among the wonders and curiosities of the county. On a large beech tree, which stood upon the bank of the tributary of the Little Barren River, is said to have been found by Edmund Rogers, one of the earliest surveyors in the Green River country, the following inscription: "James McCall, of Mecklenberg County, N. C., June 8, 1770." Other initials were found on the same tree.

Near Glasgow is a cave in the bluff of the river, in which many human bones were found. The cave was never fully explored, and nothing beyond the mere fact of bones being found is known concerning it. Another cave on Skaggs' Creek was discovered, in which were found bones, but their size indicated that they were wholly the bones of children. A bone was found in this cave--apparently a "Knight Templar drinking cup"--which seemed that part of the skull about the crown of the head, and bore traces of carving on the outside, and of having been scalloped on the edges. We read of savage kings of olden times drinking wine from the skulls of their slaughtered enemies; this may have been a custom among the prehistoric people of the Ohio Valley.

The following sketch, though partaking somewhat of the Joe Mulhatton style of romance, appears in Collins' History of Kentucky:

In December, 1870, a party of hunters chased a fox into a cave on Beaver Creek, five miles from Glasgow, and about fifty feet from the Columbia road. The cave is well known, and had been occasionally visited. But in the southern avenue the hunters explored a tortuous fissure in the rock, about twenty feet long, and large enough to admit the body of a man, which led them into a small, oblong chamber, eighteen feet long and twenty feet high. In this they found the remains of at least ten human beings, the skulls nearly all sound, many bones perfect, others too much decayed for removal. On several of the skulls, lying on the surface, was a limestone formation, caused by the dripping of water from the stone ceiling. The robbers and murderers who infested this road and region in early days, probably used this cave, and in this secluded chamber deposited their murdered victims.

When the first white people came to what is now Barren County, quite a number of mounds were plainly to be seen, some of which are still perceptible. On the promontory formed by the confluence of Peter's Creek with the Big Barren River there was a group of mounds, several in number. They were some distance apart, forming a circle several hundred yards in circumference, and when first seen bore evidence of having had huts upon them. Within the circle of small mounds was a large one, nearly 100 feet in diameter. Just outside of the circle was another large mound, similar to the one just described. Another group of mounds some distance from this group was discovered, and in some of them, upon being opened, bones, teeth and human hair, perfectly preserved, were found. In the vicinity of these mounds are many graves lined with smooth, flat stones, containing bones and skeletons. This is but confirmatory of the opinion of many archaeologists that "our houses are built on grounds once appropriated by other;" that "our towns and cities occupy the sites of older cities," and that "our cemeteries are sacred to the memory of a ghostly people who, in the event of a final resurrection, could rise up and claim ownership prior to that of the Anglo-Saxon race."

Settlements were made in the present county of Barren prior to the close of the last century. Among the early settlers, and perhaps one of the first white men in the country, was Edmund Rogers, a pioneer surveyor in southern Kentucky. He settled upon land in this county on which he afterward laid out the town of Edmonton in 1800. He was a native of Virginia, born in 1762, and was a Revolutionary soldier. He came to Kentucky in 1783, and spent many years in surveying lands in the Green River country. He died in 1843, and was buried on the farm he had long before located and improved.

Hon. Preston H. Leslie, for more than a quarter of a century a citizen of this county, was born in Clinton County in 1819. He is a man of prominence and ability, and, like many of our wisest statesmen, he has been the "architect of his own fortune." He was left an orphan at an early age, and "his self-relying spirit and indomitable energy," says his biographer, "made him, in his poverty, a cart-driver in the streets of Louisville at the age of thirteen; a wood-chopper at fourteen; a ferryman, farmer's boy, and cook for tan-bark choppers at fifteen; a lawyer at twenty-two; a representative in the Legislature at twenty-five; a senator at thirty-two; and governor of the eighth State in population of the American Union at fifty-one."

After completing his law studies he was admitted to the bar, and commenced practice in Monroe County, but some years later removed to Glasgow, in this county, where he still resides. When Gov. Stevenson was elected to the United States Senate in 1871, Mr. Leslie, as the acting lieutenant-governor, was inaugurated governor, to fill out his unexpired term. In August of the same year he was the Democratic nominee for governor, and was elected by 37,156 majority over his Republican competitor. Since the close of his gubernatorial term he has retired from politics and resumed the practice of his profession in Glasgow.

A native of this county, who arose to military distinction in the history of his country, was Gen. John C. McFerran. He was born in Glasgow, and was the son of Judge W. R. McFerran. A graduate of West Point, he was breveted second lieutenant of the Third Infantry in 1843, and afterward served in the Mexican war. He also served with distinction in the late civil war on the Federal side, and for gallant and meritorious services was breveted lieutenant-colonel, colonel, and brigadier general of the United States Army. At the time of his death he was assistant quartermaster-general of the United States Army, and chief quartermaster for the department of the South. He died April 24, 1872, in Louisville.

Barren County Kentucky Genealogy on Roots Web.