Grave of Lucy Virgin Downs, 1769-1847

The first white child born of American parents, west of the Allegheny Mountains-Mrs. Lucy Virgin Downs-was a resident of Oldtown, Greenup County, from 1807 until her death in 1847. She was the daughter of Jeremiah and Lucy Virgin, born September 17, 1769, in what is now Fayette County, Pennsylvania, near Uniontown, which was then called Beesontown. In 1790, with her parents and brother, Brice, she came to Limestone, now Maysville, Kentucky. In 1792, she and her brother moved to Cincinnati. She was married there to John Downs September 20, 1800 under a marriage license issued by General Arthur St. Clair, as Governor of the Northwest Territory. In June, 1845, at a family gathering, she related that General George Washington visited her father and a neighbor in 1773, when he was surveying a tract in Pennsylvania that was afterwards called Washington Bottoms. Many of her descendants are still living in this part of Kentucky. This marker erected under the terms of the will of the late Jennie Scott Osenton, great-granddaughter of Lucy Virgin Downs.

Dedicated September 15, 1963.