Dr. John J. Dickey Diary, Fleming County, Ky. Recorded in the 1870's and
beyond.  Reprinted in Kentucky Explorer, Vol 10, Number 10, April, 1996. p.
85. By permission.  Breathitt County.

NAPOLEON BONAPARTE COMBS

(The following interview was made at Jackson, Kentucky, July 19, 1898.)

	I was born in Perry County, Kentucky, in 1808.  All I know about 
my age is
that I voted for General Jackson.  My father was Mason Combs.  My mother
was Jennie Richeson or Richardson.  He and seven brothers came.  William
Combs, my uncle, went to Fayette County.  He was at my mother's after my
father died and wanted to take me to his home to raise.  My father had 11
children, 5 girls and 6 boys.  I am the youngest.  The girls were born
first.  Willie, the youngest daughter, was born in Kentucky.  There are
seven children, at least, born after the Combses came to Kentucky, and the
youngest was born in 1808.  The surveyor (?) books are good authorities. 
John Duff was the first surveyor I knew.  I think the Combses are Irish. 
Stephen Jett told me that he stayed all night at my father's when he moved
to Kentucky.  My father took up all the land that he could in his own name,
and then he took some up in his daughter, Willie's, name.  He owned six
miles up Carr, also up and down the North Fork.  He had land in Tennessee. 
He left his land on the Holston.  He said there were Indians in Kentucky,
and if he could not live here, he would have his own land to which to go
back.  He never sold it.  He had plenty here and did not need it.
	I married Miss Susan Isom.  My father-in-law said he used to carry his own
gun while plowing, but I do not know that there were Indians here.  The
Isoms must have come about as early as the Combses.  I moved first to
Breathitt about fifty years ago and then to Owsley seven years later. 
General Leslie Combs, of Lexington, was a cousin of my father's.  I have
always understood it.  One of my nephews named his son for him.   So did
Hardin Combs of the Middle Fork, Breathitt.  Old Leslie told Wiley Combs,
my son-in-law, "Never deny your name.  It is as good a name as there is in
this world."  he always claimed kin to us.

Combs Jackson Richeson Richardson Duff Jett Isom
=
Perry-KY Lexington-Fayette-KY TN Owsley-KY 

http://www.rootsweb.com/~kygenweb/kybiog/breathitt/combs.nb.txt