Lytle Family - Captain William Lytle

Captain William Lytle

Captain William Lytle (1728–97), was deeded 1,200 acres (4.9 km2) of land for service as one of General Washington's elite corps of officers in the Revolutionary War (the Society of the Cincinnati). He solicited settlers to follow him with the promise of land. In April 1780, (8 years before John Cleves Symmes and Colonel Robert Patterson), Capt. Lytle and his family braved the frontier with 63 Kentucky flatboats of settlers accompanied by 1000 fighting men led by Colonel Ludlow. They landed on April 11 and were promptly attacked by an Indian party mounted on horseback. (Centennial History of Cincinnati, p. 120)

Colonel Israel Ludlow (1765–1804) was tasked with setting up a fort on the site to secure the land from Indian tribes and led a party of soldiers down the Ohio River. The soldiers and the settlers combined parties in Pittsburgh and floated down the river on Kentucky flatboats together. The flatboats were disassembled upon arrival and the wood used to build Fort Washington.

Three Lytle relatives were named Surveyor General of the Northwest Territory, based in Cincinnati. Family members included Surveyor General William Lytle, Congressman Robert Todd Lytle (a relative of the Todd-Lincoln family), General William Haines Lytle (the poet), and members of the Livingood family. Captain Lytle (1728–97) gave land to his daughter Anne for a wedding gift on which she and her husband, Judge John Rowan, built the Federal Hill Mansion, in Bardstown, Kentucky, which, according to tradition, inspired the song My Old Kentucky Home.