Farmington was built between 1815 and 1816 for John (1772-1840) and Lucy Fry (1788-1874) Speed. Both of them came from wealthy Virginia families that moved to Kentucky in the last decades of the 1700s. John Speed's father, Captain James Speed, fought in the Revolutionary War and was badly injured. Like many others, he sought to make his fortune in land speculation in the newly opened territory west of the Appalachian mountains. In 1782, he brought his young family and his slaves over the Wilderness Road and settled near Danville, Kentucky.