I have been into areas this week that I hadn’t visited in 25 years. My son Toddie took me in his recently acquired little “puddle jumper” into the William Prater hollow on Mash Fork and the trip brought back memories to me of when I was a young man, actually a boy, I drove a pair of mules and pulled the oil wells in this and other adjacent hollows. There were two “Power” houses and we visited both, the houses have fallen in on the large engines and the power wheels. I took pictures as best I could as this industry is fast fading in our area.
I worked the same area again in the late 1950s in the secondary water flooding of these old oilfields. There is a smaller water flooding process in this valley today.
Toddie and I next made an excursion into the Rock Lick of Rockhouse Creek. I now have a better understanding of why Rock Lick and Rockhouse got their names for I stood on some of those high rocky knobs where you can gaze out for seemingly miles in every direction. Are we overlooking a tourist attraction in this area? From this vantage point one could see craggy rocky knobs that were probably in the Middle Creek area and I would like to explore there.
I notice other counties are advertising such areas as tourist attractions and it brings a thought to my mind that we may be missing something here.
Most of the lower Rock Lick has been cleared up and the bottom ground fenced into pastures with water piped into large concrete basins from the ponds Mr. Dotson has built. He took me to the Stephen Hamilton Cemetery which is in an abandoned state.
Mr. Dotson also pointed out the open dug well on what was the Frank Adams home place, plus the chimney rocks of another home above the Adams home site. It amazes me to see the little yellow daffodils (“Easter lilies”) still surviving and blooming at these old home sites and cemeteries.
We had an inquiry from Warren Patton’s granddaughter asking if anyone had known her grandfather. The same day Kellie Lee Miller asked if we knew anything about the Patton’s and wanted to know where Warren Patton was buried, relating that he once would “show up” at their home and spend a few days or sometimes weeks there and worked on the farm or did anything there was to do. Kellie remembered that Warren wore a nice black suit and hat and that when he shaved his beard, he also shaved his head.
I later got in touch with Joe Hackworth, a great-grand nephew, who verified the above story and said he had once asked Warren why he shaved his head and the answer was “Now I don’t have to worry about a certain little bug attaching itself to a person’s hair.”
Joe told that Warren died of an apparent heart attack on the Carpenter farm at the mouth of Half Mountain where he lived in a little shack of a house and he is buried in the Meredith Patrick Cemetery at Bradley.
Ray Collinsworth and I visited that cemetery and found his grave, now marked by a little funeral home marker that apparently had only recently been put there, at least it wasn’t there in 1978 when I copied that cemetery. He is buried next to his parents, Pierce and Caroline (Patrick) Patton. Joe Hackworth wants to make him a more permanent marker with his dates.
Warren Patton was born in 1879 and died in 1955. He married Raney Salyer, dau of Jackson M. Salyer and Susan Allen and they had one daughter Norsie Patton who married Robert Fletcher. Raney was first married to Elliot Arnett and married 3rd to Asbury Arnett.
Patty Huyssoon (cordeliafire @sbcglobal.net) wrote that she had heard there was a memorial in a park near Salyersville honoring Michael Risner and would like to visit it when she makes the trip to Kentucky in June to attend a family reunion. This Risner memorial marker is set in the Gose/Risner Cemetery on Middle Fork on Rt. 3337, about a mile off Rt. 30.
Jim McCarty (victory2 @netscape.com) sent some welcome info following a recent query in column dated 8 Feb. Henry Huff married Celia McCarty b. 26 Sep 1909 Stinson Creek, Magoffin Co. KY. Celia was a dau of James Edgar McCarty (not James K. McCarty) and Jeanie Pearl Barker. Celia was a granddaughter of Harlan McCarty and a gr-granddaughter of Jeremiah McCarty b. 1817 Scott Co. VA and Malinda Kilgore b. 1819 Scott Co. VA.
Douglas Ray Marshall (angus274 @juno.com) writes that he is the son of Edward Marshall and Sarah Salyer. He is a grandson of Vinson Marshall and Shug Risner and wondered if there was a book on Marshall genealogy. Our Risner book on page 124 has info that James Risner and Margaret Adams had a son Michael Risner who married Martha Hamilton. Their 2nd child was Margaret Risner who married Elliott Marshall’s 4th child, Vinson Marshall. Vinson’s son Edd Marshall married Sarah Salyer and their 4th child was Douglas Marshall. Marshall family info can be found in several of our publications.
Krista Reich (areichk @yahoo.com) asked for info on the Craft Creek School as her grandpa went to school there in the 1930s and she would like to visit it this summer. I don’t think the building is still there although you will enjoy seeing the beautiful Craft Creek valley, so visit it if you can and stop by our place here in Salyersville as we have the log school room that once set on Rt. 30 near the intersection of Rt. 30 and Craft Creek. I will volunteer Jewel Howard to guide you to the Craft Creek school site.
Gaylord Cooper, Director of Eastern KY Storyteller’s Guild (coopergl @roadrunner.com) would like to interview anyone with info on the Carmel Indians of Carmel, OH or those people who claim to have Melungeon bloodlines. If there is anyone out there that would consent to be interviewed by Mr. Cooper, we will try to let you know when he will be visiting our county. We have many inquiries about these lines.
Allen L. Lee (halfacrecowboy @msn.com) has found some info in Cass Co. MI after a biographical quest. He writes that Ezekiel Cole was born to John C. Cole and Cuzzie Anderson who claimed Cherokee heritage. John C. Cole was born to Jack Cole and was adopted by an English farmer. It is said that Jack and his brother William “Billy” ran from the Trail of Tears to near Ivyton and a farmer found them but the soldiers got Billy back and the farmer adopted John and raised him as a Cole.
Mr. Lee further related “It is said that John C. Cole and Cuzzie Anderson lived as Cherokee Indians and he wonders if Jack was an Anderson before he was adopted.
I print the above query to give our local people “food for thought” as we don’t have the answers. According to some charts we have John Charles Cole b. 1755 in Cherokee Nation, died ca. 1850 in Lawrence Co. KY. He married Cuzzie Anderson b. in NC and died in 1883.
William Anderson “Billy” Cole b. 1791 Buncombe, NC died in 1880 (as near as I can make out) in Magoffin County. He married 1st to Obedience “Biddy” Collins and m. 2nd to Rebecca Watkins.
Now, I have a question, where is William Anderson “Billy” Cole buried in Magoffin County. We have two different versions of the Chestnut Grove Cemetery and neither of them lists Wm. “Billy”. In Volume 4 of our cemetery books we have info that there is a Cole Cemetery adjacent to the Chestnut Grove Cemetery but no other information. We include this in hopes that it will bring info from someone who has knowledge of these families.
We heard from some of our members who renewed their membership this week and helped with some donations. Thanks to Bruce and Jo Stephens of Hazard, KY, to Barbara Lemaster of Knoxville, IN and to Gary and Janet Cole of Salyersville, KY. We also thank Izinia Thorrington who renewed her membership and sent gift memberships to several members of her family.
Write us at (email: [email protected]), Magoffin County Historical Society, Box 222, Salyersville, KY 41465, telephone 606-349-1607. We are located at 191 So. Church Street in Salyersville.
Magoffin County Historical
Society
