Hickman County, Kentucky was the 71st county. Formed in 1821 from the pre-existing counties of Caldwell and Livingston with an area of 248 square miles. Hickman County is bordered by Mississippi River to the West, Carlisle County to the North, Fulton County to the South, Graves County to the East, and Obion County in TN to the Southeast. The Bayou de Chien and the Obion River run through Hickman County. The county was named in honor of a hero, Captain Paschal Hickman, who was a War of 1812 casualty in the after-math of the Battle of River Raisin in Michigan in 1813. The original county seat of Hickman County was Columbus.  In 1829, after a realignment of the county lines, the location was moved to Clinton to keep it's capital more towards the geographical center of the county. Hickman is also the parent county for the following: Ballard, Calloway, Fulton, Graves,and McCracken counties. Murphrey's Pond is a swampy wilderness refuge, like the bayou of the deep South; inhabited by creatures not found elsewhere in the state. The Columbus-Belmont Battlefield State Park, at Columbus, on the banks of the Mississippi River, was the site of an impregnable fortress held by Confederate forces during the Civil War to prevent the Union from penetrating the South via the Mississippi River.