Pendleton County is a county located in the U.S. state of Kentucky. As of the 2020 census, the population was 14,644. Its county seat is Falmouth. The county was founded December 13, 1798.

Pendleton County is included in the Cincinnati-Middletown, OH-KY-IN Metropolitan Statistical Area.

History

Pendleton County was created from parts of Campbell and Bracken counties in 1798. The county was named after Edmund Pendleton, a longtime member of the Virginia House of Burgesses, the Continental Congress and chief justice of Virginia.

Falmouth, the future county seat, began as a settlement called Forks of Licking, 1776.

Falmouth was chartered in 1793. Its name originated from the Virginians who settled there from Falmouth, Virginia. It was also in 1793 that one of the first sawmills in Kentucky was built in Falmouth. The county courthouse was erected in 1848. The county's northeastern border with Ohio is formed by the Ohio River.

Adjacent counties

  • Kenton County (northwest)
  • Campbell County (north)
  • Clermont County, Ohio (northeast)
  • Bracken County (east)
  • Harrison County (south)
  • Grant County (west)

Demographics

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Elected officials

{| class=wikitable

|-

| colspan="3" |Elected officials as of January 3, 2025

|-

! scope=row|U.S. House

| |Thomas Massie (R)

| |

|-

! scope=row|Ky. Senate

| |Shelley Funke Frommeyer (R)

| |24

|-

! scope=row|Ky. House

| |Mark Hart (R)

| |78

|}

Culture

Pendleton County is home to The Kentucky Wool Festival, Griffin Center Amphitheater, and Kincaid Regional Theatre.

  • Phillip Allen Sharp, who earned the Nobel Prize for work that fundamentally changed scientists' understanding of the structure of genes, is a native of Falmouth.
  • J. M. Lelen was pastor of St. Francis Xavier Roman Catholic Church in Falmouth for many years in the first half of the 20th century.
  • Beth Broderick, actress on Sabrina, the Teenage Witch was born in Falmouth.
  • Nate Jones, was drafted in the 5th round, 179th overall, by the Chicago White Sox in the 2007 MLB Draft. He also played for the Cincinnati Reds, the Atlanta Braves, and the Los Angeles Dodgers before retiring.
  • Samuel Thomas Hauser, born in Falmouth, was the first resident to become territorial governor of Montana and the seventh territorial governor to that date
  • John Merritt coached at Jackson State University from 1953 to 1962 and then at Tennessee State from 1962 through the remainder of his coaching career.

Communities

Cities

  • Butler
  • Falmouth (county seat)

Unincorporated community

  • DeMossville

See also

  • Bethel Cemetery and Church, a historic frame church 5 miles north of Falmouth
  • Fryer House, an 1811 stone house, home of the Pendleton County Historical Society
  • National Register of Historic Places listings in Pendleton County, Kentucky
  • Stepstone Creek, a creek in Pendleton County, tributary of Slate Creek, flowing into Licking River

References

  • Pendleton County Historical Images and Documents: Northern Kentucky Views
  • Pendleton County Genealogy - a KYGenWeb site