Corn Island

Corn Island, formerly Dunmore's Island, was an island in the Ohio River at head of the Falls of the Ohio, just north of Louisville, Kentucky. Estimates of the size of Corn Island, now submerged, vary with time, as it gradually was eroded and became submerged. A 1780 survey listed its size at . It then extended from what is now Louisville's Fourth to Fourteenth Streets. The first settlement that later became Louisville on the mainland was established on the island in 1778 by George Rogers Clark. History Corn Island was first surveyed in 1773 by Virginia Captain Thomas Bullitt's party and called Dunmore's Island (after John Murray, 4th Earl of Dunmore, Crown Governor of Virginia). Surveying expeditions like that helped to provoke Dunmore's War the following year. During the American Revolutionary War, the island was settled on May 27, 1778, by George Rogers Clark's militia and 60 civilian settlers, who remained behind when Clark's party departed on June 24. Among the surviving names of the families are those of Captain James Patton, Richard Chenoweth, John Tuel, William Faith, and John McManus. Clark established the farming colony on the island as a communication post to support his famous military campaign in the Illinois Country. Shortly after Roger's departure, Colonel David Rogers and Captain Robert Benham land there on their way to New Orleans to meet with the Spanish governor. In October 1779, both made another short visit to the island on their return trip. When leaving the island a few days later, the group was attacked by Simon Girty opposite Dayton, Kentucky.