By GAGE WILSON
Glasgow News 1
Henry Skaggs was born on Jan. 8, 1724, to a renowned hunter and fur trading family, who taught him the lessons he required to become one of Barren County’s most famous “long hunter” men who undertook lengthy hunting expeditions into the wilderness. In subsequent years, working as a land agent with Richard Henderson and Daniel Boone, he explored large parts of Middle Tennessee and Central Kentucky.
In 1764, Henry Skaggs led his first expedition through the Cumberland Gap, a mountain pass at the junction of Kentucky, Tennessee and Virginia. These early trips westward attracted the interest of famed explorer Daniel Boone.
Boone used his existing relationship with North Carolina land speculator Richard Henderson to recruit Skaggs as an agent for Henderson’s land company, Richard Henderson and Company. In 1765, Skaggs explored the lower Cumberland River region as an agent of Henderson and established his station near the present day Goodlettsville, Tennessee.
In 1775, Skaggs, along with Valentine Harman, a member of the Transylvania Convention at Boonesborough in May, led Colonel Thomas Slaughter to the Green River country of Kentucky to explore that land on behalf of Richard Henderson’s Transylvania Company, which had recently purchased the area along with a large portion of Central Kentucky.
Henry Skaggs may have initially settled, in the area of Pittman’s Creek in present-day northeast Green County. However, land claims in the military district of Kentucky south of Green River were restricted to grants for veterans of the Revolutionary War until 1796. After Barren County, was organized in 1798 from parts of Warren County and Green County, Henry Skaggs filed a claim in July, 1801, in Barren County Court for 200 acres of land. The original survey and deed have not been examined, but this tract was evidently located at or near present-day Hiseville, in Barren County, where he lived until he died.
As part of the Harvest of History tour, Skaggs will be portrayed by Jim Taylor who gravitated to the role because of his love for local history as well as the outdoors.
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