706 PENDLETON ACADEMY justice of the peace for Caroline Co., Va., in 1751. He was a member of the Virginia House of Burgesses from 1752 to 1776 and represented Virginia in the Continental Congress from 1774 to 1775. He was the first Speaker of the Virginia House of Delegates and became the first judge of the High Court of Chancery in 1777. Pendleton was president of both the Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals from 1778 to 1803 and the Virginia Ratification Convention in 1788. Eventually, he refused appointment to the federal judiciary in 1788 because of advancing age. Pendleton died in Richmond, Va., in 1803. He was buried first in Edmundsbury, near Bowling Green, Va., but his remains later were moved to Bruton Parish Church Cemetery in Williamsburg, Va., in 1907. Biographical Directory of the United States Congress. “Pendleton, Edmund (1721–1803).” http://bioguide .congress.gov (accessed April 5, 2006). Mays, David J. Edmund Pendleton, 1721–1803: A Biography. Cambridge: Harvard Univ. Press, 1952. ———, ed. The Letters and Papers of Edmund Pendleton. 2 vols. Charlottesville: Univ. Press of Virginia, 1967.
Jenny Plemen
PENDLETON ACADEMY. The Pendleton Academy in Falmouth began in 1814 under the direction of Professor R. C. Robinson of Moscow, Ohio, in a one-story building, 20 by 30 feet. The brick used in the building was available on-site. Constructed on land purchased from Reuben Turner for $30, the academy’s building was at the corner of Broad and Fourth Sts. For many years, this private school was simply called the seminary. In 1848 a new one-story building, 20 by 56 feet, was erected where the present Falmouth Middle School now stands. It was later known as Pendleton Academy. Belew, Mildred Bowen. The First 200 Years of Pendleton County. Falmouth, Ky.: Mildred Bowen Belew, n.d. [ca. 1994].
Mildred Belew
PENDLETON CO. This 281-square-mile county is bordered by Grant, Kenton, Campbell, Bracken, and Harrison counties. The Ohio River borders Pendleton Co. for five miles along its northeastern border, and Falmouth is the confluence of major forks of the Licking River. The terrain consists of fertile river valleys surrounded by undulating hills. Most of the farm production is burley tobacco and beef and dairy cattle. The county was created on December 13, 1798, from portions of Campbell and Bracken counties and was named after Edmund Pendleton (1721–1803), a longtime member of the Virginia House of Burgesses (1752–1774) and the Continental Congress. Falmouth is the county seat. The other incorporated city in the county is Butler, located on the Licking River seven miles north of Falmouth. In 1820, 250 square miles of the county were taken to establish Grant Co. The Licking River was an important avenue for the early exploration of Kentucky. Along with an overland route through the county, the English captain Henry Bird (see Bird’s [Byrd’s] War
Road) took the river in leading 600 Indians and Canadians in the June 1780 attack on Ruddell’s and Martin’s stations in Central Kentucky. The first settlement in the county is believed to have been the one at the fork of the Licking at some time around 1780. The settlement, which became Falmouth, was established by James Cordy, Peter DeMoss, Samuel Jones, Gabriel Mullins, and James Tilton. With the exception of the county seat, Pendleton Co. remained rural during the 19th century. The farm economy was based on tobacco, and legend has it that the first crop was raised in the southwestern part of the county with seed brought from Virginia. In the 1830s Oliver Browning floated 100-pound hoop-pole packages of the crop from McKinneysburg on flatboats down the Licking River to Cincinnati and points beyond. The coming of the Covington and Lexington Railroad through the county in 1853 gave sellers a connection to markets at Cincinnati and Louisville. By the 1890s, intensive tobacco production had depleted much of the soil in Pendleton Co. Sweet clover brought from Alabama in 1895 was planted in worn-out tobacco fields, restoring profitability to tobacco cultivation, as well as to apiary and dairy industries. Pendleton, “the county that came back,” nevertheless lost one-third of its residents at the height of the economic crisis. Another forage crop that succeeded in the county was alfalfa, probably introduced between 1900 and 1910 by traveling Mormon preachers. By 1925 local tanners produced hundreds of tons and were exporting alfalfa to other areas. In the late 1850s, a company of Pendleton Co. soldiers was organized to perform peacekeeping duties among the Mormons in Utah. During the Civil War, the county sent men to both armies. A Union recruiting camp was established in Falmouth in September 1861. Two Confederate recruiters were captured and executed in the Peach Grove area of northern Pendleton Co. In July 1862 a number of county citizens were rounded up by Union troops during a crackdown against suspected Confederate sympathizers. In June 1863 a number of women were arrested at DeMossville because they were believed to be potential spies “dangerous to the federal government.” Falmouth was the site of a small skirmish on September 18, 1862, between 28 Confederates and 11 Home Guardsmen (see Falmouth, Battle of). The city of Butler was established in the 1850s when the Covington and Lexington Railroad was built through the area. Originally called Clayton, for reasons unknown, the city was named for William O. Butler, a U.S. congressman, when it was incorporated on February 1, 1868. Like Falmouth, Butler in the 1870s and 1880s was a major tobacco market and its other businesses included lumber and sawmills, flour- and gristmills, churches, schools, a railroad depot, a blacksmith shop, and various stores. In 1871 a covered bridge was built across the Licking River at Butler (see Butler Covered Bridge). The bridge was used until the 1937 flood weakened its supports. The structure was later torn down and replaced with a steel bridge.
Major floods of the Licking River in 1937, 1948, 1964, and 1997 made flood control a major concern of residents (see Flood of 1937; Flood of 1964, Licking River; Flood of 1997, Licking River). The creation of Falmouth Lake (now Kincaid Lake) State Park near Falmouth, a 200-acre impoundment, failed to prevent the 1964 flood (see Kincaid Lake State Park). Initial planning for a 12,000-acre impoundment of the Licking River nine miles south of Falmouth got under way in the mid-1970s, but because of the magnitude of the project, it was abandoned. The completion of the AA Highway in 1990 has made Pendleton Co. more accessible to the urban areas of Northern Kentucky and Cincinnati. Many county residents not engaged in farming are employed outside of the county, commuting to jobs within the metropolitan area. The population in 2000 was 14,390. Belew, Mildred Boden. The First 200 Years of Pendleton County. Falmouth, Ky.: M. B. Belew, n.d. [ca. 1994]. Kleber, John E., ed. The Kentucky Encyclopedia. Lexington: Univ. Press of Kentucky, 1992. U.S. Census Bureau. www.census.gov/ (accessed January 2, 2008).
Warren J. Shonert and Staff
PENDLETON CO. MEMORIAL HIGH SCHOOL. Pendleton Co. Memorial High School opened its doors on September 8, 1959, in its present single-story brick structure, situated on a bluff outside Falmouth on U.S. 27 North. In its first year, the school enrolled 360 students from the former Morgan and Butler high schools. In fall 1968, the Falmouth High School was merged into Pendleton Co. Memorial High School. In fall 1971, many students from the St. Xavier High School in Falmouth also joined the school’s rolls. In May 1960, the high school’s first graduating class consisted of 70 students. Adopting the traditions of its predecessor high schools, Pendleton Co. Memorial High School observes unique, multievent graduation ceremonies. On Class Night, students are introduced to the audience, noting their parents’ names and their home community within the county. Scholarships and awards are presented, and members of the graduating class perform vocal and instrumental selections, skits, and dances. The following Sunday evening, baccalaureate is held at a local church. On the third evening, commencement itself takes place. Pendleton Co. Memorial High School’s mascot is the Wildcat, and the school’s colors are red, white, and black. The school has published its yearbook, The Pendleton Echo, each year since it opened. A school newspaper, known originally as The Pendletonian and later as The Cats’ Paws, has been published intermittently. The high school’s facilities have undergone several renovations over the years, with a major one during the late 1980s. In spring 2007, the school began a major expansion (designed by architects Sherman, Carter, and Barnhart of Lexington) that included eight new classrooms, a 450-seat auditorium, an auxiliary gym, a new library–multimedia