Joe & Denise Terry and John Kelly Ross
Monday, September 27, 2021 11:52 am

Historical Society Chair Tom Bugg reads the early history of Hickman County at opening event of 200th anniversary

Once the entire Kentucky portion of the Jackson Purchase was Hickman County.

Andrew Jackson and Isaac Shelby set this story in motion when they negotiated The Chickasaw Treaty of 1818. This treaty transferred a vast amount of Chickasaw Land in west Kentucky and west Tennessee to the US Government.

This huge area was called the Jackson Purchase.

All of Kentucky's share of the Jackson Purchase was named Hickman County after Paschal Hickman, a soldier who died a hero in the war of 1812.

Columbus was then the largest, busiest town in this area, so it became the county seat. Hickman County's first courthouse was built in Columbus in 1823.

This log structure in Columbus was the seat of government until 1829, when residents voted to move the seat of government to Clinton.

Clinton's first courthouse, also a log structure, was built on this site the next year, in 1830.

The Jackson Purchase. was later subdivided into Calloway County (1822), Graves County (1824), McCracken County (1825), Marshall County (1842), Ballard County (1842), Fulton County (1845), and Carlisle County (1886).