Hardin County. Formed from Nelson County by first Legislature, 1792. Named for Col. John Hardin, veteran of Dunmore's War, 1774, Am. Rev., Gen. Clark's Wabash Exped., 1787, and Maumee Indian campaign, 1790. Murdered by Ohio Indians while U.S. peace envoy to them in 1792. In 1780 Elizabethtown settled by Samuel Haycraft, Thomas Helm and Andrew Hynes, for whose wife town named.