Richard Henderson, also known as “Judge Richard Henderson” or “Colonel Henderson” is an interesting historical character. In 1769 he and two associates (John Williams and Thomas Hart) formed a land company and hired Daniel Boone and five of his companions to make an extended reconnaisance of Kentucky. Boone returned in 1771 with glowing reports of the wilderness paradise. In 1774 Richard Henderson organized the Louisa Land Company, later named the Transylvania Land Company. With Daniel Boone’s help, he managed to summon the entire tribe of Cherokee Indians, numbering approximately 1200, to Sycamore Shoals on the Watauga River in Tennessee. In a pow-wow that took place March 14-17, 1775, the Transylvania Company, for 10,000 pounds in money and goods bought from the Cherokees 20 millon acres of land, corresponding to most of present Kentucky and a large portion of present Tennessee.

Daniel Boone and 30 axemen were sent out to clear a trail to Kentucky, subsequently known as the Transylvania Trail or Boone’s Wilderness Trail. Colonel Henderson came along in their path at the head of 40 armed men and established a settlement on Otter Creek, later known as Boonsborough KY. On May 23, 1775, Henderson convened a legislature made up of delegates from the various Kentucky settlements and drew laws for a 14th American colony, named Transylvania.

Henderson, Boone and the others who participated in this land deal, one of the largest of all time, were ahead of their time. The Continental Congress was at that time still trying to find reconcillation with Great Britain and was unwilling to sanction the “New Independent Government” of Translyvania. Even after the opening of the Revolution, Virginia refused to recognize Transylvania, but they did grant to Richard Henderson and Company 200,000 acres of land in consideration of the expense in making the land purchase and settling the lands.

The foregoing was taken from a 1964 Raleigh NC newspaper article.3218 See also this account.3219