David Glenn was of Irish descent and was born in 1753, likely in Pennsylvania but possibly in Virginia. He was one of the early settlers of Kentucky having accompanied James Harrod in founding Harrodstown in 1774, along with his older brother, Thomas. Today, Harrodsburg is considered the oldest permanent white settlement in Kentucky, being it was settled almost a full year before Boonesborough.
Throughout the Revolutionary War, David Glenn served as a hunter and soldier under General George Rogers Clark, accompanying him on his extraordinary expeditions to Kaskaskia and Vincennes during Clark's Illinois Campaigns in 1778-79. He was responsible for procuring supplies for Harrodsburg, maintaining a small cabin to store meat and provisions about 50 miles south of the fort on Russell Creek. This area eventually bore Glenn's name, originally called Glennsville and later known as Glens Fork, and it became a thriving town until suffering hard times and near-abandonment during the Civil War.
David Glenn was a fierce Indian fighter with many tales of narrow escapes from and acts of vengeance against the Wyandot, Mingo, Shawnee and Delaware tribes. He later moved west to Yellow Banks (present-day Owensboro) where he was instrumental in setting up then-Ohio County, serving as Trustee of Hartford Academy and Justice of the Peace. In 1815, when Daviess County was formed from Ohio County, David Glenn was appointed as one of the commissioners and later died in 1820 on his homestead.
Harrod's Expedition
Following the Seven Years' War and the Treaty of Fort Stanwix approximately 200,000 acres in present-day Kentucky and West Virginia had been promised by the British Government to the colonial veterans. In 1774, Lord Dunmore ordered an expedition to survey the boundaries of these lands, sending out a few parties led by James Harrod, Thomas Bullitt, Hancock Taylor, and the three McAfee brothers - Robert, James and George.
Harrod departed from Fort Redstone in May, just south of Fort Pitt, and travelled down the Monongahela and Ohio Rivers. At Grave Creek, near present-Moundsville, he assembled his company of 32 men (including David and Thomas Glenn) and then went down the Kentucky River to the current site of Harrodsburg where they laid out the town on June 16.
Tensions had been high between the settlers and the Shawnee for a while, but after the Yellow Creek Massacre and Cresap's War, followed by Logan's retaliation in western Pennsylvania, war became imminent. Lord Dunmore then sent two experienced frontiersmen out to warn John Floyd, Deputy Surveyor of Fincastle County, and the other surveying parties that an Indian war had begun. These two men were Daniel Boone and Michael Stoner and they are said to have completed the round trip of 800 miles in just 64 days. When Boone arrived at Harrodstown, he stayed long enough to build himself a cabin and then went off to continue relaying Dunmore's message to the other surveyors in the area.
Harrod's company still remained at Fort Harrod until July 10 when one of their men was killed, at which point, they set out through the Cumberland Gap for the Holston Valley where they found recruiting for the Fincastle County Battalion. David and Thomas Glenn, along with the majority of the other men, enlisted in the battalion under Captain Harrod's company of Kentucky Pioneers commanded by Colonel Christian. While other battalions marched on to meet the Indians in battle, like General Lewis, who left on September 12, Colonel Christian's men stayed at Camp Union to guard the remaining provisions until the packhorses at Elk Creek could return. Christian's Battalion moved quicker than any of the others, leaving Camp Union on September 27 with supplies and covering 103 miles over eight days, arriving at the mouth of Elk River (now Charleston) on the 8th, 25 miles from the site of the battle. On October 10, still 12 miles away, Christian received a message from General Lewis requesting they hasten for the battle had just commenced. Although they hurried, they arrived at Point Pleasant at 11 o'clock just after the battle had ended.