This article, written by Todd Preston, President of the Magoffin County Historical Society, was taken from the February 4, 2010 issue of THE SALYERSVILLE INDEPENDENT newspaper.

The Salyersville Independent , a weekly newspaper.
P. O. Box 29, Salyersville, KY 41465. 
Telephone (606) 349-2915. 
Yearly subscription rates are $24.00 in Kentucky and
$30.00 per year out of state.

            My “things to get done this winter” list is growing by leaps and bounds and I can’t blame it all on the weather, although that is part of it.  We had hoped to get the Samuel Salyer Cemetery cleaned up by now as well as other similar chores.  The weather has been a little cold for that, although I have tagged along with Randall and Jack all over Little Half Mountain and the Mouth of Puncheon Civil War battlefields.  We, along with a group of Middle Creek re-enactors were sizing up the projected South Magoffin re-enactment location.  Now, there is not a lot of preparation time for this and Ol’ Man Winter just keeps things at a stand still.  If you hang around Randall Risner very much, you will get to believing this proposed re-enactment will be the spark that will entice all others to plan activities throughout this one hundred and fiftieth birthday of Magoffin County.

            I, for one, would like to see more people preparing for this Sesquicentennial celebration.  Has your club, church, fraternal organization, business, school or just plain “you” made any preparation toward celebrating this special year?

            Can there be a park in the Royalton or South Magoffin area?  There are a few people who think it could happen and if you saw all that flat land on top of Little Half Mountain that is now being used to pasture horses, you would think so. The area is large enough for an airport with a golf course or two thrown in for good measure.  You would be somewhat surprised to see the amount of land. 

            How many of you have sort of given up and declared you are too old to participate in doing anything to further the growth of Magoffin County?  Instead of just giving up and sort of waiting on the grim reaper, you could be putting the story of your life into print. It could have an impact on future generations and needs to be taped or written down.

            When you see Henry Clay Patrick walking forty times around the community center auditorium, it ought to make you renew your efforts to do like-wise.  I would, but I don’t have the time (brag, brag).

            Bob Whittaker of SC sent us several pages of Daniel Boone’s activities during his lifetime from 1734 to 1820.  Included is the information we were asked for recently via email from a reader concerning a tree on which he had carved his name.  Bob’s information relays that Boone and his party were traveling in this area in the 1770’s and came into the area that is now Magoffin County to gather salt.  They were caught in an early winter storm and decided to spend the winter.  From the printed description of their travels, Bob surmises the area was probably Puncheon Camp Creek or perhaps Burning Fork. 

            A Baptist preacher discovered a beech tree on the south side of Burning Fork, about two miles from Salyersville with “D  Boon  1776” carved into it.  It was covered with moss and was accidentally uncovered in 1890. The preacher forgot about it until he was clearing land in 1894 and cut the beech tree down.  The section with the carving was preserved.  Later when he moved to the state of Washington in 1910, it was given to Shelby F. Elam of Lexington, KY and was put on exhibit in the Lexington Public Library. A Professor Matthews examined it and stated the tree was old enough to have been carved on by Daniel Boone.  Daniel and his brother Squire Boone, when separated, often carved on trees and stones to help locate one another.

            Bob sent a picture of this inscription from the Frank C. Dunn photo collection.

            Perhaps with this information someone can add more details.  We have had many residents from our area that relocated to Washington State, and we are always interested in stories of their lives.

            Connie Barber ([email protected]) sent an article she found on the Internet. It relates that six Gipson’s were assassinated by moonshiners in Kentucky.  Harrison Gipson supposedly told the story to a Pike Co. Ohio newspaper reporter. In short, a fellow came into southern Magoffin posing as an oil lessor and stayed with a Gipson family while taking up leases.  Leaving for a short time, he returned later as a revenue agent and he, along with several other agents, destroyed some moonshine stills whose owners then killed the Gipson clan that had harbored the agent.

            First, if something of this magnitude of deaths had been handed down from generations to the present then I believe we would know about it.

            Secondly, oil and mineral leasing did not get serious until after 1900.  So, to sum it up, I believe either Harrison Gipson sort of “stretched” the truth a little or perhaps the reporter did so.

            There is a thirteen year old Harrison Gipson (born Jan 1887) and listed as a cousin in the household of Garfield Fletcher in 1900.  In 1894, one Harrison Gipson married Sarah Nickles.

            Now, there is an account of three Gipson family members who were killed on the Little Paint Creek on the Magoffin/Johnson county line by a man who served the rest of his life in prison but that episode did not happen “up the Licking River.”