Colonel John Hardin (October 1, 1753 – circa May 1792) was a soldier, farmer, rancher, noted marksman and hunter. He was wounded fighting in Lord Dunmore's War; served as a Continental Army officer in the American Revolutionary War and as a Kentucky Co., Virginia militia commander in the Northwest Indian War. He was a member of the Methodist church and one of the first judges in the original Washington County, Virginia (later to become Washington County, KY). Colonel Hardin was killed in an ambush while acting as a peace emissary (under the direction of the President, George Washington) to the Shawnee Indian people.