John Finley, Pioneer of Fleming County by Cotterill, R. S.
John Finley, the Fleming county pioneer, was born July 7, 1748, near Shippensburg, Cumberland County, Pennsylvania. His parents were John and Martha (Berkeley) Finely; his paternal grandparents, Michael and Ann (O’Neill) Finley emigrated from county Armagh, Northern Ireland to Philadelphia, where they landed September 28, 1734. Concerning the early life of John Finley little is known except that as a young man he was engaged in the cattle trade with the French on the Great Lakes. In 1772 he was living with his married brother Clement on the Youghiogheny River in western Pennsylvania, and in that year removed with Clement and Clement’s brother in law, John Carnahan, to the neighborhood of Wheeling where they settled on Wheeling and Buffalo creeks; on this latter creek John Finley was living when in July, 1773, he joined an expedition led by his kinsman Captain William Thompson down the Ohio from Fort Pitt to Kentucky.
Thompson led a group to the mouth of Cabin Creek, where they began surveying, while Finley joined a smaller group that traveled farther south to explore the Licking River at the Upper Blue Licks. The group spent a week clearing almost an acre of land to build a log cabin. They made only one survey, which covered about 1,440 acres, during which they discovered the Blue Lick Springs, farther south, that became the Lower Blue Licks. Hostile Indians forced Finley to rejoin Thompson and the main group at Cabin Creek in early August. When they left Kentucky, the expedition had marked lines along Cabin Creek, Salt Lick Creek, Johnson Creek, and the North Fork of the Licking River. All of the tracts of land adjoined, except for Finley's Upper Blue Licks survey, covering an area of about twenty square miles. Virginia had refused to recognize the Thompson surveys since the expedition had not been commissioned by the colony. In 1779, however, the Virginia Land Act gave a preemption of 1,000 acres to any Virginian who had made a land improvement in Kentucky prior to January 1, 1778, which made Finley eligible for most of the land he had surveyed in the Upper Blue Licks. His military service had prevented him from filing his claim, but in 1789 he joined the expedition of Col. James Garrard and marked his land in Fleming and Nicholas counties. For several years the danger of Indian attacks prevented him from moving, and not until 1796 was he able to settle along the banks of the Licking River with his family. His land was crossed by both the Warrior's Path to Cabin Creek and the main Washington Road, and be was appointed overseer of the main road in 1798. Finley was perhaps Fleming County's most prominent citizen, serving as state legislator from that county during 1800-1804 and as justice of the peace during 1801-5. Indicating some dissatisfaction with his home, Finley in 1802 began leasing twenty-five acres of his land, his ferry on the Licking, and his salt works. In 1809 be built a tavern for people traveling down the river. That same year, relatives of John Durham (who had surveyed land in the same area) contested Finley's land, claiming it overlapped land that was rightfully theirs. Despite appeals, Finley lost between 250 and 300 acres of land in 1820, including the Washington Road and his new home. A son-in-law in 1828 bought back the land and sold it to Finley in 1836. Finley married Hannah Duncan in Pittsburgh in 1790; they had seven children: Martha, David Duncan, Margaret, Samuel Berkley, Betsey Ann, Maria Jane, and Hannah. Finley died on April 10, 1837, and was buried in the family graveyard near his first home on the Licking River.
