Sunday, August 26, 2018

General Benjamin Logan (1743-1802) – Scotland, Ulster, Pennsylvania, Revolution

General Benjamin Logan Google Art Project

Once again that journey, once again those experiences. Benjamin Logan’s ancestors were ‘Presbyterians who fled from Ayrshire in Scotland to escape persecution and settled in the north of Ireland’ (source here). His father, David Logan, was born in Ulster - possibly Armagh - and emigrated to Pennsylvania where he married Jane McKinley. They then moved to Orange County in Virginia around 1740 and Benjamin was born in 1743, and was baptised by a Rev John Craig on 3rd May. The county was renamed Augusta and David was one of the county’s militiamen. He died when Benjamin was just 15 and inherited the family farm. He gave it to his mother and siblings, and he headed to the frontier, marrying an Anne Montgomery. 

Benjamin and Anne then settled at the Holston settlement and was one of those who called Rev Charles Cummings in 1773. Shortly after Cummings’ authoring of the Fincastle Resolutions, the Logans again headed onwards and established Logan’s Fort near the present town of Stanford. The fort came under sustained attacks by combined forces of Native Americans and British troops. This 1830s book gives a bio and an account of a heroic rescue by Logan of a man called Harrison - “Logan who was bravery itself”.

Benjamin became colonel of the Kentucky militia and was second in command of all of the Kentucky militias during the Revolution. He was one of those who helped establish Kentucky firstly as a county in its own right in December 1776, and then as a state in its own right in 1792. His brother John was the first state treasurer (Wikipedia here)

Logan County in Kentucky is named after Benjamin. Benjamin and Jane's oldest son, William Logan, as also a significant figure in the history of the state (see here).

Here’s Benjamin Logan's Wikipedia

0 comments: