Caldwell County

Caldwell County, the 51st erected in the state, was formed in 1809, out of part of Livingston County, and named in honor of Gen. John Caldwell; is situated on the waters of the Cumberland and Tradewater rivers; bounded north by Crittenden and Hopkins, east by Hopkins and Christian, south by Trigg and Lyon, and AV. by Lyon and Crittenden counties. The land is generally undulating.

Towns
Princeton, the county seat, on the Elizabethtown and Paducah railroad, 13 miles north east of Eddyville, on the Cumberland River, has a handsome brick court house, and 14 lawyers, 5 physicians, 8 churches, Princeton College (an elegant building), and Princeton Female Academy (each with about 100 students), 1 banking house, 3 hotels, 10 dry goods stores, 3 drug stores, 3 furniture stores, 6 groceries, 2 wagon and plough shops, 13 other mechanics' shops, 2 steam flouring mills, and 1 woolen factory; population in 1870, 1,012.
Fredonia, 12 miles north west of Princeton, has 1 church, 2 hotels, 5 stores, 3 doctors, 3 mechanics' shops, and 1 flouring mill.

Members of The Legislature, Since 1859

Senate
Franklin W. Darby, 1871-75.

House of Representatives
Wm. B. Acree, 1859-61;
Wm. H. Edmunds, 1861-63, shot on board of the steamboat Nashville by a guerrilla in the fall of 1862;
Francis Gardner, 1863-67, but resigned January, 1866, and succeeded by Jas. K. Hewlett, 1866-67;
Philip M. Thurmond, 1869-71;
Thos. J. Morrow, 1873-75.


Gen. John Caldwell, in honor of whom this county received its name, was a, native of Prince Edward County, Virginia. He removed to Kentucky in 1781, and settled near where Danville now stands. He took an active part in the conflicts with the Indians, and rose by regular steps from the rank of a common soldier to that of a major general in the militia. He served as a subaltern in the campaign against the Indians in 1786, under Gen. George Rogers Clark. He was a prominent man of his day, esteemed in private and political, as he was in military life. He was a member, from Nelson County, of the conventions held in Danville in 1787 and 1788. In 1792, he was elected from the same county a senatorial elector, under the first constitution; and in the college of electors, he was chosen the senator from Nelson. He took his seat in the senate at the session of 1792-3. He was elected lieutenant governor of the State in 1804, and during his term of service removed to the lower part of the State. He died at Frankfort in the year 1804 November 19, while the legislature was in session.


Source: History of Kentucky, Volume II, by Lewis Collins, Published by Collins & Company,
Covington, Kentucky, 1874