soldiers (brigade) with one lieutenant and four majors. 1st Kentucky County Militia Colonel Whilst the use of Colonel in Kentucky may have occurred earlier, records show that the first official "Kentucky" colonel was John Bowman, who was commissioned in the months after the territory was claimed and officially named by the Colony of Virginia in 1776 as one of its own counties. Col. Bowman's "head of colony" commission was issued by Governor Patrick Henry with the mission to "colonize" Kentucky county and form a civil government. His commission certificate reads: You are therefore, carefully and diligently to discharge the duty of Colonel of the Militia, by doing and performing all Manner of Things thereunto belonging; and you are to pay a ready Obedience to all Orders and Instructions which from Time to Time you may receive from the Convention, Privy Council, or any of your Superior Officers, agreeable to the Rules & Regulations of the Convention, or General Assembly, and to require all Officers and Soldiers under your command to be obedient and to aid you in the Execution of this Commission according to the Intent & Purpose thereof. Given under my Hand & Seal, -Williamsburg this 21st day of December 1776, P. Henry, Jr. Bowman formed a company of 100 men and travelled from Williamsburg to Boonesborough and upon arrival bestowed the title of "Lieutenant Colonel" of Kentucky County to nearly any and all those who were already colonels in their own-right, and to many of his friends, stating that the territory is part of Commonwealth of Virginia and that Transylvanians were all part of Kentucky. Shortly afterwards Kentucky County became the Kentucky District with three counties; before it became a state it already had Louisville, Frankfort and Lexington and nine counties by 1791 all subdivided by its Kentucky colonels. Col. Bowman by nature was already a Transylvania lieutenant colonel, he was present as a delegate nineteen months earlier in the creation of the Transylvania Colony with colonels; Daniel Boone, Richard Henderson and eleven other heads of colony ("colonels"), he participated in the Transylvania Convention on May 23, 1775, in Boonesborough. This meeting assembled delegates from four Kentucky settlements, and together these colonels wrote the instrumental "Kentucke Magna Charta" which served as a foundational document for Commonwealth of Kentucky. Colonels founding a new Commonwealth As early as 1784, a year after Col. Isaac Shelby who was a Revolutionary War