ROBERTSON CO.
At age 26 he was elected to the U.S. Congress and served two terms before resigning in 1821 to attend to family obligations at home. Back in the commonwealth of Kentucky, Robertson moved his family to Lexington and turned his professional attention to state government. He was a member of the Kentucky legislature from 1822 to 1827 and served briefly as the Kentucky secretary of state in 1828. Robertson’s distinguished judicial career began in 1828, when he was appointed to the Kentucky Court of Appeals, the highest court in the state at the time. He served on that court until he resigned in 1843, and he was chief justice for most of those years. After his resignation from the bench, he practiced law in Lexington and won election to the Kentucky legislature two more times in 1848 and 1851. Robertson enjoyed a long and productive relationship with Transylvania University in Lexington, a school he attended briefly before leaving to read law. He was a professor of law at Transylvania University from 1834 to 1857 and wrote in his autobiography that he had “helped to make more than 1200 lawyers.” In 1847 Robertson met future president Abraham Lincoln (1861–1865), who was visiting his wife’s family, the Todds, in Lexington. From then on, Robertson and Lincoln enjoyed a cordial friendship, corresponding occasionally about issues of the day. Robertson represented Lincoln, along with his wife Mary Todd Lincoln and other Todd heirs, in a lawsuit brought in Fayette Circuit Court in 1855. During the Civil War, Robertson strongly supported the Union cause. Despite his pro-Union stance, however, he remained a slave owner until the conflict’s bitter end. He successfully sued a Union Army colonel in federal court for refusing to surrender a Robertson family slave. The slave had sought refuge in one of the Union troop encampments located near Lexington during the war. Robertson was ultimately compensated $900 for the loss of this runaway, money that had to be appropriated by a special act of the U.S. Congress in 1873. In 1864 Kentucky voters returned Robertson to a seat on the Kentucky Court of Appeals. His second period of judicial ser vice produced some controversial criminal law holdings. For instance, an 1870 opinion authored by Robertson held that shooting someone in the back constituted selfdefense. An earlier opinion rendered by Roberston, one that contravened all existing law of the period, recognized drunkenness as a legitimate defense against murder charges. Despite such legal aberrations, Robertson remained popu lar with most Kentuckians. During the 1867 Kentucky legislative session, the legislature moved to name a county “in honor of the distinguished son, statesman, and jurist of Kentucky, George Robertson.” On August 1, 1867, the boundaries of Bracken, Harrison, Mason, and Nicholas counties were officially redrawn, and Robertson Co. became the 111th Kentucky county. Toward the end of his life, Robertson, who had grown large not only in reputation but also in physical stature, acquired the nickname “Old Buster.” In 1871 he suffered a debilitating stroke and a few months later resigned from the Kentucky
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Robertson Co. Courthouse, Mt. Olivet.
Court of Appeals when his condition failed to improve. He died in 1874 and was buried in the Lexington Cemetery after a large public funeral procession. His home, Rokeby Hall, still stands in Lexington, where it is part of the city’s South Hill Historic District. Biographical Directory of the United States Congress, 1774–1989. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1985. Biographical Encyclopedia of Kentucky. Cincinnati: J. M. Armstrong, 1878. Coleman, J. Winston, Jr. “Lincoln and ‘Old Buster,’ ” Lincoln Herald 46, no. 1 (February 1944). Kleber, John E., ed. The Kentucky Encyclopedia. Lexington: Univ. Press of Kentucky, 1992.
Deborah Diersen Crocker
ROBERTSON CO. On August 1, 1867, Robertson Co. became the 111th county to be created within the Commonwealth of Kentucky. It was named for Judge George Robertson and was formed by carving out portions of Bracken, Harrison, Mason, and Nicholas counties. Mount Olivet is the county seat. Robertson is the county that contains the Blue Licks Battlefield State Resort Park and the Johnson Creek Covered Bridge. In 1880 the county had a population of 5,800; today, with roughly 2,100 residents, it is the least-populated county in the state. At approximately 100 square miles, Robertson Co. ranks as the second-smallest county in land area within Kentucky. Robertson Co. is located in the northeastern region of Kentucky known as the Outer Bluegrass. The terrain is hilly, the roads are winding, and hardwood forests cover 25 percent of the county. Its northern boundary mainly consists of the North Fork of the Licking River; to the south, its boundary with Harrison and Nicholas counties is
the main fork of the Licking. Robertson Co. is drained by those rivers and several major creeks, including Cedar, Clay’s, Drift Run, Fire Lick, Helm, Johnson’s, Painter, Shannon, and West creeks. The elevation of the county varies between 550 and 1,000 feet above sea level. The enabling legislation to form the county was proposed by Harrison Co. state representative Duncan Harding of Kentontown. At that time, Kentontown was part of Harrison Co., as well as Harding’s home, and he owned most of the town. Harding therefore had the most to gain if this hamlet became the county seat. He won legislative approval for his new county, but not for the name he proposed, Cass Co. (after Lewis Cass, the War of 1812 hero and 1848 Democratic presidential candidate who had just died). Moreover, Harding was not able to convince his colleagues that Kentontown should be the county seat; instead, the more centrally located Mount Olivet became the county’s seat. Mount Olivet formerly had been within Nicholas Co., the southeastern adjacent county and the one that had surrendered the most land area for the new county. The portion of land that had been surrendered was the Nicholas Co. land north of the Licking River, which was often difficult to cross. The major industry in Robertson Co. is farming, in par ticu lar tobacco. The county has continued to lose population since its formation. More than half of the people employed work outside the county, and those people tend to give up their long commutes eventually and move closer to their jobs. High school graduates who do not take up farming or tobacco have very few career options near home. Robertson Co. has no hospital, no airport and no major shopping area. Railroads pass through adjacent counties, but not through Robertson. In