William Whitley - Military Career

Military Career

Whitley volunteered for service in George Rogers Clark's expedition against Indians in the Northwest Territory. He was assigned to Captain John Montgomery's Company which accompanied George Rogers Clark's forces. Whitley would scalp many natives during his career as a militia leader and frontiersman. By 1779, Whitley had returned for his family and permanently settled on the land he had claimed years earlier.

By the 1790s, as the settlement at St. Asaph's began to expand into the town of Stanford, William Whitley and his family built a large brick house outside town, near what would later become Crab Orchard, Kentucky. The estate was named Sportsman's Hill. It was the first brick house built in Kentucky and still stands, preserved as the William Whitley House State Historic Site. The house includes a secret passage for escape and survival during raids by Native Americans, and originally included a racetrack. This racetrack set several traditions for horse racing in the United States. It had the first clay (instead of turf) track in the United States and raced horses counterclockwise (instead of clockwise, as was the British tradition).

In 1792, Isaac Shelby, the newly elected governor of Kentucky, commissioned Whitley as a major in the 6th Regiment of the Kentucky militia. He was promoted to lieutenant colonel the following year. In 1794, he led 200 militiamen in a highly successful raid against a Chickamauga village in Tennessee.

In 1797, he served a single term in the Kentucky House of Representatives. He also represented Lincoln County as a commissioner of the Kentucky River Company in 1801. In 1813, at the age of 64, he volunteered in the Kentucky Mounted Infantry for service in the War of 1812. In the Battle of the Thames, on October 5, 1813, he led the "Forlorn Hope" charge against Tecumseh's forces. Both Tecumseh and William Whitley were killed in the battle. There is much evidence from primary accounts that Whitley, and not Richard Johnson, was likely the person who slew Tecumseh. He was buried near the battleground, in Chatham, Ontario. His horse, Emperor, who had one eye and two teeth shot out during the charge, his powder horn, strap, and rifle were returned to his wife in Kentucky. The rifle is currently on display at the William Whitley House State Historic Site.

In 1818, Whitley County, Kentucky, and its county seat, Williamsburg, were named for him. In 1838, Whitley County, Indiana, was named after him. In addition, the census-designated place Whitley City, Kentucky, is named after Whitley. The Andromeda-class attack cargo ship USS Whitley was named in honor of the counties in Kentucky and Indiana which were named in honor of Col. Whitley himself. Whitley was also the grandfather of William L. Sublette, co-owner of the Rocky Mountain Fur Company with Jedediah Smith and David Edward Jackson and member of the original fur-trapping contingent Ashley's Hundred.