Five hundred feet north stood the site of a log fort and stockade built by Lieutenant Colonel Wm. Miller, a Virginia-born settler who came to Kentucky with Daniel Boone's party, helped mark a trace to Boonesboro, served with Captain James Estill in the Battle of Little Mountain, and surveyed land for the fort in 1776. Other early settlers included George Adams, Wm. Champ, and Alexander Denny. The settlement took the name Paint Lick from Indian signs painted on trees along creek banks and around the nearby salt lick. The fort was built over a spring reached by steps leading down to it. In 1791, Jinney Adams was killed by Indian Chief Thunder and was buried in the first marked grave in the fort cemetery.