The area of the Upper and Lower Blue Licks is steeped in the early history of frontier Kentucky. Ten months after British Commanding General Cornwallis had surrendered at Yorktown; on Monday, 19 August 1782 a bloody frontier battle took place here in this region and is noted as one of the final battles of the American Revolutionary War. Fourteen years later, a young Scotsman and his new bride settled in the frontier lands of Nicholas County. Only four years earlier, Kentucky was admitted to the Union as its 15th state. David Ballingall was the eighth child of David Ballingall (1721-1805) and Rachel Durie, born at Warout in Markinch Parish, Fifeshire. After growing up in Markinch, the young man seeking a new life in America, most likely read accounts about the exciting frontier lands in America. Ballingall, it seems left Scotland in circa 1792-93, although it could have been earlier and first settled in Madison County, Kentucky where he met Frances Jones Williams who was also of Madison County. Shortly after their marriage, they relocated to Nicholas County where David began farming and established a mill named the land after his family, Ballingall's Mill, where they had four children. The family stayed at Ballingall's Mill for nine years until deciding to move across the Licking River to the Lower Blue Licks region. Also in 1805 David Ballingall was appointed as an Assistant Judge, and known throughout the region simply as "Judge." He held this position for eight years until he was addressed out of office because as a Scotsman he was un-naturalized, and not a United States citizen at the time. David was also mentioned in the Acts passed by the Kentucky General Assembly in 1825 as his residence in the Lower Blue Licks was a place of voting. This then is the narrative of the life and times of David Ballingall.