{"id":3859,"date":"2026-04-17T20:00:47","date_gmt":"2026-04-18T00:00:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/storiesofappalachia.com\/?p=3859"},"modified":"2026-04-17T10:10:53","modified_gmt":"2026-04-17T14:10:53","slug":"james-harrod-the-kentucky-pioneer-and-his-mysterious-disappearance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/storiesofappalachia.com\/?p=3859","title":{"rendered":"James Harrod: The Kentucky Pioneer and his Mysterious Disappearance"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span class=\"embed-youtube\" style=\"text-align:center; display: block;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" class=\"youtube-player\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/kK90FEVL3Es?version=3&#038;rel=1&#038;showsearch=0&#038;showinfo=1&#038;iv_load_policy=1&#038;fs=1&#038;hl=en-US&#038;autohide=2&#038;wmode=transparent\" allowfullscreen=\"true\" style=\"border:0;\" sandbox=\"allow-scripts allow-same-origin allow-popups allow-presentation allow-popups-to-escape-sandbox\"><\/iframe><\/span><\/p>\n<p>James Harrod was a soldier, a longhunter, an explorer and the man who founded Kentucky\u2019s first permanent pioneer settlement. But in February 1792, the legendary Colonel Harrod walked into the woods and never returned.<\/p>\n<p>Today we tell the story of the man who founded Harrodsburg, Kentucky and the many theories surrounding his mysterious disappearance, including a possible connection to the fabled Swift\u2019s silver mine.<\/p>\n<p>Be sure to subscribe to the Stories podcast so you don\u2019t miss any of our stories.\u00a0 You\u2019ll find us wherever you get your favorite podcasts.<\/p>\n<p>Thanks for listening!<\/p>\n<div class=\"powerpress_player\" id=\"powerpress_player_9191\"><audio class=\"wp-audio-shortcode\" id=\"audio-3859-1\" preload=\"none\" style=\"width: 100%;\" controls=\"controls\"><source type=\"audio\/mpeg\" src=\"https:\/\/dts.podtrac.com\/redirect.mp3\/api.spreaker.com\/v2\/episodes\/71408818\/download.mp3?_=1\" \/><a href=\"https:\/\/dts.podtrac.com\/redirect.mp3\/api.spreaker.com\/v2\/episodes\/71408818\/download.mp3\">https:\/\/dts.podtrac.com\/redirect.mp3\/api.spreaker.com\/v2\/episodes\/71408818\/download.mp3<\/a><\/audio><\/div><p class=\"powerpress_links powerpress_links_mp3\" style=\"margin-bottom: 1px !important;\">Podcast: <a href=\"https:\/\/dts.podtrac.com\/redirect.mp3\/api.spreaker.com\/v2\/episodes\/71408818\/download.mp3\" class=\"powerpress_link_pinw\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"Play in new window\" onclick=\"return powerpress_pinw('https:\/\/storiesofappalachia.com\/?powerpress_pinw=3859-podcast');\" rel=\"nofollow\">Play in new window<\/a> | <a href=\"https:\/\/dts.podtrac.com\/redirect.mp3\/api.spreaker.com\/v2\/episodes\/71408818\/download.mp3\" class=\"powerpress_link_d\" title=\"Download\" rel=\"nofollow\" download=\"download.mp3\">Download<\/a><\/p><p class=\"powerpress_links powerpress_subscribe_links\">Subscribe: <a href=\"https:\/\/storiesofappalachia.com\/?feed=podcast\" class=\"powerpress_link_subscribe powerpress_link_subscribe_rss\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"Subscribe via RSS\" rel=\"nofollow\">RSS<\/a><\/p><!--powerpress_player-->","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>James Harrod was a soldier, a longhunter, an explorer and the man who founded Kentucky\u2019s first permanent pioneer settlement. But in February 1792, the legendary Colonel Harrod walked into the woods and never returned. Today we tell the story of the man who founded Harrodsburg, Kentucky and the many theories surrounding his mysterious disappearance, including [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[14,318,739,83,13,106],"tags":[1654,1653,1655,1658,1274,1657,1651,471,1650,796,893,1212,1652,1659,1656,499],"class_list":["post-3859","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-exploration","category-settlers","category-the-1780s","category-the-1790s","category-the-appalachian-frontier","category-the-unexplained","tag-1792-disappearance","tag-appalachian-mysteries","tag-colonel-james-harrod","tag-early-kentucky-law","tag-frontier-history","tag-harrods-town","tag-harrodsburg","tag-historical-true-crime","tag-james-harrod","tag-kentucky-history","tag-kentucky-pioneers","tag-michael-stoner","tag-pioneer-settlements","tag-swifts-silver-mine","tag-unsolved-historical-mysteries","tag-wilderness-survival"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6TX4A-10f","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/storiesofappalachia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3859","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/storiesofappalachia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/storiesofappalachia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storiesofappalachia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storiesofappalachia.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3859"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/storiesofappalachia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3859\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3863,"href":"https:\/\/storiesofappalachia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3859\/revisions\/3863"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/storiesofappalachia.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3859"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storiesofappalachia.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3859"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storiesofappalachia.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3859"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}