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Morgan County was formed in 1822 from Floyd, and Bath Counties. The county seat being West Liberty.
Within these pages you will learn more about the historical and genealogical history of Morgan County.
County Seat: Created: 1822
Parent: Floyd, Bath
County Seat: West Liberty
The county was named for Gen. Daniel Morgan, a veteran of the Revolutionary War, and WEST LIBERTY was established as the county seat in 1824.
Morgan County, Ky is located in the Piedmont of the Western Cumberland Plateau. As one travels eastward from West Liberty, the hills gradually get higher.
Originally the county was much bigger than it is now. Still Morgan County is one of the largest of Ky's. counties. It encompasses 240,000 acres or 375 square miles.
Morgan County was once made up of many small communities or towns.
Many communities that grew up during the timber booms of World War I, and the onset of the"Roaring Twenties", vanished or became ghost towns when the timber industry ended.
Ghosts:
Morgan county - Wrigley Hill - Just off of 519 lays route 7 which flow across Wrigley Hill. Late at night people driving across Wrigley Hill have seen a woman hitch-hiking or the have seen her in their car.
Civil War
A second courthouse was among some twenty-nine buildings destroyed by fire during the Civil War, along with the offices of the circuit and county clerks, and many irreplaceable county records. Although some influential families were proUnion during the war, most Morgan County residents had Confederate sympathies. Confederate leaders from Morgan included Capt. John T. Williams and Maj. William Mynheir (who, as sheriff in 1853, carried out the county's only hanging). Although no major battles occurred in the county, there were a few skirmishes, including three at West Liberty and one at McClannahan Hill. (From The Kentucky Encyclopedia, edited by John Kleber.)
The population of the rural county was 10,019 in 1970; 12,103 in 1980; and 11,648 in 1990.
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