Journal of the House of Representatives of the Commonwealth of Kentucky: title varies, 1792–, Lexington & Frankfort, var. state printers, 1792–.
(In the last third of the 18th Century, the area that is now the State of Kentucky comprised a lightly settled district of the British Royal Colony of
Virginia. In the immediate pre-Revolutionary years a series of treaties with various Indian tribes methodically cleared way for greater white
settlement. By the time of the American Revolution the population of the District of Kentucky had grown sufficiently that it could realistically hope to become
a separate American state. The State of Virginia proved pleasantly cooperative. Via legislation called the “Virginia Compact” it set up the
legislative framework for the transition of the District to statehood and, very importantly given their recent provenance, transferred all Kentucky-related
land records to the new capital of Frankfort. In legislation passed on 4 February 1791 the U.S. Congress consented to the admission of the District as a
separate state. Kentucky’s new constitution carried over the common law as it had existed in Virginia and provided that the general statute laws of
Virginia would remain in effect in the new state unless and until modified by subsequent acts of the Kentucky legislature. In addition the new state
adopted the title of “Commonwealth,” a designation it shares with three other states: Massachusetts, Pennsylvania and Virginia. While the term has no
legal significance, it is meant to indicate that the entity has a government based upon the consent of the people, rather than being legitimized through
royal charter from the monarchs of England. The Kentucky legislature began its first session in the town of Lexington, the temporary capital, on 4
June 1792. The town of Frankfort, the putative capital, got its first post office in 1794, and a governor’s mansion by 1798. The first permanent capitol
building in Frankfort was completed in 1830.)(Documents which are part of the Early State Records collection were digitized from a microfilm copy of
titles originally held by the University of Chicago Library, the Kentucky State Library, the Massachusetts State Library, the Library of Congress, the
Kentucky Historical Society, Harvard University Library, and the Filson Club in Louisville, Kentucky).
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