Falmouth Outlook Friday 9 Nov. 1923 Vol. 17 No. 23 Pg. 4 Col. 4 HOW CYNTHIANA SECURED ITS NAME IN EARLY DAYS Visitors laugh to learn how the little city there (Cynthiana) got its name. They are told that Robert Harris, the founder of the town had two daughters, one named Cynthia and the other Anna. When he cast about for an appropriate name he combined the names of his two daughters there he had it. – Maysville Independent Cynthia and Anna ere daughters of Robert Harrison, not Harris. Their father, says the historian, was a blacksmith, a good workman a gay, healthy, rollicking son of the wilderness, just the man for the times and his blooming young daughters, not then grown, were the favorites of all their father's customers and neighbors, just as the blooming girls of the city today are the favorites of all who like pretty, wholesome youthfulness. The name Cynthiana continues the historian, of course gave general satisfaction. But Robert Harrison soon sold out his rights to the soil, for his farm was already, in 1793 “laid off into convenient streets and alleys,” and before Cynthia and Anna reached womanhood the family removed to Portsmouth, Ohio. There he flourished in business; his family grew up and one of his daughters married a successful young merchant of Philadelphia and became an honored matron in a prosperous family of that city. When the town was “laid off into convenient streets and alleys,” pity the streets were not made wider. But the rugged blacksmith and his neighbors could not of course foresee the foray of motor vehicles that would clog traffic in 1923 any more than we can forecast the demands that will be made on a town a hundred years from now; or ten years for that matter. The Act of the Second General Assembly of Kentucky establishing the town of Cynthiana was approved Dec. 10, 1793. Isaac Shelby was then the first governor of Kentucky, George Washington was the first President of the United States; Napoleon had not been heard of; John Wesley had been dead only two years; Alexander Campbell was only two years old; Henry Clay was a youth of sixteen writing in a law office in Richmond, VA; Indians yet disputed the soil of Kentucky and the battle of Blue Licks had been fought two years before. A house built in 1790, directly in the rear of the court house yard on an alley, for years occupied by Hope Redmon, photographer, still stands and is used by the county as an office for road engineer and supplies. In olden times it was used successively as residence, court house, law office, printing office and perhaps church. Guthrie’s old arithmetic is said to have been printed in that house. Henry Clay there defended a fellow named House, accused of murder, in 1806. At the close of Clay’s brilliant speech says the historian, House’s wife, anything but a beauty, jumped up and kissed the orator, much to his embarrassment. Let’s hear how Maysville got its name. – Cynthiana Democrat ============================== Items of interest to: Doug Harper Biloxi, MS