About the year 1782 John Harlan, accompanied by his wife and four children, em. to Lincoln Co., KY, a county that at that time embraced nearly or quite one-third of that now great commonwealth. His place of settlement was (after the several subdivisions of Lincoln were made) in Mercer, Co., where he remained until 1818, when he moved into Barren, (now in) Monroe Co., and entered a tract of 200 acres of land near the present town of Tompkinsville.