A Virginian Moves to Kentucky, 1793

Abstract

JOHN BRECKINRIDGE of Virginia moved to the Bluegrass region of Kentucky in the spring of I793. For the next few years, until his death in i8o6, he was to play an important role in Kentucky and national politics, but it is his decision to leave Virginia that will concern us here.1 Breckinridge was not a buckskin-clad pioneer who fought off Indians with one hand while erecting a crude log cabin with the other. Nor was he a member of the great planter-businessman group which later set the tone of the ante-bellum Bluegrass. As a second-generation pioneer of moderate means, he was a bridge between his Indian-fighting predecessor and his aristocratic successors. As such, Breckinridge was perhaps typical of a small but important group whose part in the development of the Old West is all too neglected. It was not the lure of adventure which drew Breckinridge westward. Kentucky's great attraction for him was the economic advantage it promised over his Virginia prospects. am satisfied with this Country better than the old, for two substantial reasons, he wrote his wife's brother a few weeks after his arrival in Kentucky. i. Because my profession is more profitable; and 2ndly. Because I can provide good lands here for my children, & insure them from want, which I was not certain of in the old Country, any longer than I lived.2 In I785, soon after opening a law practice, Breckinridge married Mary Hopkins (Polly) CabelL8 Within the next eight years four children were