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Please add profiles of those who were born, lived or died in Fulton County, Kentucky.
History
The rural county was organized in 1845. It was named for Robert Fulton, inventor of the steamboat.
The county was developed for agriculture, which was originally dependent on slave labor. Area farmers had ties to Tennessee planters, and shipped produce down the Mississippi River, which formed the county's western border. They supported the Confederacy, while Kentucky maintained official neutrality as a Border State.
During the post-Reconstruction period, there was considerable racial violence by whites against blacks in Fulton County. Whites lynched 20 Blacks here from 1877–1950; most were killed around the turn of the 20th century. This was by far the highest total of any county in the state, more than ten times the total in many other counties. Five men were lynched from 1883 to 1917, for alleged rape, assault, barn burning, and robbery and murder.
After the Civil War, some freedmen became landowners in the county. A notably egregious lynching was that on October 3, 1908 in Hickman of David Walker and his entire family by 50 Night Riders. This may have been part of anarchic violence that was directed at blacks arising from the "Reelfoot Lake Uprising", but it also appeared that whites coveted Walker's 21 1/2 acre farm. Walker and his wife, an infant in arms, and three children were shot multiple times; the eldest son burned to death in their farmhouse; seven in total were killed on the night of October 3, 1908 in Hickman.
Adjacent Counties
- Hickman County
- Lake County, Tennessee
- Mississippi County, Missouri
- New Madrid County, Missouri
- Obion County, Tennessee
Cities & Communities
- Anna Lynne
- Bondurant
- Brownsville
- Cayce
- Crutchfield
- Fulton
- Hickman (County Seat)
- Jordan
- Kentucky Bend
- Ledford
- Mabel
- Miller
- Riceville
- Sassafras Ridge
- State Line
- Tyler
Links
Reelfoot National Wildlife Refuge (part)
National Register of Historic Places
