Henderson, Richard definition of Henderson, Richard in the Free Online Encyclopedia.

Henderson, Richard, 1735–85, American colonizer in Kentucky, b. Hanover co., Va. An associate justice of the North Carolina superior court (1769–73), Henderson was long interested in Western lands and was the chief promoter of the Transylvania Company Transylvania Company, association formed to exploit and colonize the area now comprising much of Kentucky and Tennessee. Organized first (Aug., 1774) as the Louisa Company, it was reorganized (Jan., 1775) as the Transylvania Company.
..... Click the link for more information. . He followed (1775) Daniel Boone Boone, Daniel, 1734–1820, American frontiersman, b. Oley (now Exeter) township, near Reading, Pa.

The Boones, English Quakers, left Pennsylvania in 1750 and settled (1751 or 1752) in the Yadkin valley of North Carolina.
..... Click the link for more information. , an agent for the company, to the company's first settlement at Boonesboro on the Kentucky River and in 1779 employed James Robertson Robertson, James, 1742–1814, American frontiersman, a founder of Tennessee, b. Brunswick co., Va. He was reared in North Carolina. After the failure of the Regulator movement , he led (1771) a group of settlers from Orange co., N.C.
..... Click the link for more information. to settle the Cumberland River area. Virginia and North Carolina voided the company's land grants, and Henderson and his associates were left with a very small portion of the vast territory they had claimed. Although primarily a land speculator, Henderson was one of the most important figures in the early expansion of the frontier.

Bibliography

See A. Henderson, The Conquest of the Old Southwest (1920); W. S. Lester, The Transylvania Colony (1935).

Henderson, Richard (1735–85) promoter, colonizer; born in Hanover County, Va. He was a lawyer and an associate justice of the North Carolina Superior Court (1768–73). He retired as a judge to form a land development company, the Richard Henderson & Company, and sent Daniel Boone as his agent to explore Kentucky. He organized the Louisa Company (renamed Translyvania company) in 1774 and tried to set up a proprietary colony on land between the Kentucky and Cumberland Rivers (present day Kentucky) he had bought from the Cherokee Indians. He himself established the settlement of Boonesborough, but the American Revolution cost him the support of England necessary for legalizing his colony. In 1779–80, he established a settlement at French Lick (now Nashville), Tenn.