On September 27, 1791, approximately eight years after the Revolutionary War ended, Washington Berry, who was born in King George’s County Virginia in 1764, married Alice Thornton Taylor when he was 27 years old. Alice’s father, James Taylor, founded the City of Newport, Kentucky in 1795.

On November 14, 1792 –five months after Kentucky became the 15th State of the Union — Washington Berry, purchased 1,000 acres of land where Dayton now stands on the advice of his brother-in-law, James Taylor Jr. Berry paid Katy and Caroline Muse 200 pounds (approximately $1,000) for the land. The women also sold him another 1,000 acres along Brashear’s Creek.At the time, this land was located in then Mason County before Campbell County carved out of it and created in 1795.

Washington Berry, his wife, and their first son, Taylor, who was about nine months old, moved to Kentucky on April 1793. Other members of the contingent who traveled with the Berrys during this move included James Taylor Jr., Alice’s brother, and his two slaves, Moses and Humphrey, and his young servant, Adam; Washington Berry’s brother, John; and John W. Buckner.

The family traveled by boat to Kentucky from Brownsville, Pa., on the Monongahela River near Pittsburgh, down the Ohio River to Northern Kentucky. At some point, Washington decided it wasn’t safe to bring Alice and Taylor all the way to their final destination, so when they reached Limestone (now Maysville), Alice and their young son deboarded and traveled by horse to Springhill in Clark County, where she stayed with her brother, Hubbard Taylor.

After settling in Kentucky, Washington and Alice had eight other children – four boys and four girls – including a son, James Taylor Berry, who would become one of the founders of the City of Jamestown in 1848, which would later combine with the City of Brooklyn to become the City of Dayton, Kentucky in 1866.

By the time Washington Berry was named a justice of the peace on December 17, 1794, his family was settled on their land in what is today the City of Dayton. Over the course of the next 50 years, more settlers would be attracted to this area, and on March 1, 1848, Kentucky Gov. William Owsley approved the incorporation of the City of Jamestown. The city was platted on 170 acres of land extending from the Ohio River to what is now Seventh Avenue and for seven blocks between Berry and Clark Streets.

The “proprietors” of the new city were James Taylor Berry, James M. MacArthur, and Henry Walker. The name “Jamestown” may have been a reflection of the first name of two of its founders or in honor of Jamestown, Virginia, the first permanent English settlement in North America, or both.

In March 1866, the citizens of the cities of Brooklyn and Jamestown, who had grown closer and closer together since they were both founded, overwhelmingly voted to merge the two cities into one. Jamestown approved the merger by a vote of 97 to 5 and Brooklyn by a vote of 51 to 6.

On April 26, 1866, a meeting of trustees said the combined cities decided the new city would need a new name.A Cincinnati newspaper account on July 4, 1866, said the name selected was “Dayton and we predict at some future day she will rival the beautiful city in Ohio after which she was named.”Some county historians, though, claim the name refers to a local mill that had been built and operated by an early family in the area. A Luther Dayton was listed in Campbell County’s 1850 Census.