The 111th county in order of formation, located in northeastern Kentucky, is bordered by Bracken, Fleming, Harrison, Mason, and Nicholas counties. It has an area of 100 square miles. Robertson County was formed August 1, 1867, from portions of Bracken, Harrison, Mason, and Nicholas counties and was named in honor of George Robertson, a chief justice of the court of appeals. The topography of Robertson County is hilly, with about 25 percent of the county covered in forests of hardwood and cedar. The principal streams in the county are the Licking River and its North Fork, and the Cedar, Johnson, Panther, and West creeks. The first explorers in the area were Daniel Boone and Simon Kenton in 1767. Robertson County was the site of one of the bloodiest defeats of the settlers at the hands of the Indians. On August 19, 1782, at the Blue Licks, about ten miles south of Mt. Olivet, a force of 176 Kentuckians were ambushed by about one hundred Indians led by British officers and the renegade Simon Girty. Some historians state that Blue Licks was the last battle of the American Revolution. In 1882 Gov. Luke P Blackburn (1879-83) dedicated the cornerstone of the Blue Licks Monument. The Blue Licks State Park was established in the 1930s. Duncan Harding of Kentontown, a state representative from Harrison County, worked for the passage of the bill to create the county. Among the communities in Robertson County are Mt. Olivet, Abigail, Kentonville, Piqua, Sardis, and Bratton's Mill, also called Pinhook. Pinhook, according to local folklore, is the origin of the tobacco "pinhooker," a speculator who buys a tobacco crop for resale. Robertson County remains an agrarian community of small family farms. Approximately 82 percent of the land is in farms, of which tobacco and livestock are the major products. In 1980, 50 percent of the local labor force was employed in other counties. The population of Robertson County was 2,163 in 1970; 2,265 in 1980; and 2,124 in 1990.