This article, written by Todd Preston, President of the Magoffin County Historical Society, was taken from the January 6, 2011 issue of THE SALYERSVILLE INDEPENDENT newspaper.

            Those who wished for a white Christmas around here surely got their wish!  It made for some beautiful scenery and outdoor snow fun.  

            The snowfall made me think of a next door neighbor of a few years ago whom everyone knew as “Aunt” Mollie Craft Patrick who lived to be 103.  She always welcomed the big snows as she thought they left minerals in the ground that made for better gardens.  Her garden always put the neighbor’s gardens to shame but I think it was because she spent twice as much time in her garden as they did. (SMILE)

            2010 was a remarkable year for Magoffin County with many Sesquicentennial events to attend and/or participate in for our people and those who visited with us.  We saw two Civil War battle reenactments complete with Civil War era balls.  Getting to visit the schools and sharing information about our county history with the children was a highlight for us.  We were able to reset two historical markers as well as participate in seeing several other plaques and markers depicting more of Magoffin’s history put into place.

            Now if you have been caught up in or participated in any of the special activities of this year, let us not retire but keep up the momentum as there are still projects that need doing such as cleaning up Ol’ Licking and let’s not neglect the hundreds of cemeteries in our county.  Yes, I mean “hundreds”…I’ve spent these snowy days trying to get an accurate count of our cemeteries and predict they may number close to a thousand.

            I’ve come up with over four hundred that we have with the GPS coordinates listed.  We here at the historical society get lots of queries as to where a family cemetery may be located and if we had GPS readings to give then it would make that cemetery easier to locate.

            I know a lot of you don’t have a GPS unit. The next best thing to do is to write down every cemetery in your neighborhood and give as much direction as you can as to its location.

            For an example, I think I have visited all the cemeteries from the Mouth of Raccoon to the head but may not have the coordinates. I could re-visit a few of them but if you could help with GPS coordinates or written descriptions of locations that would be very helpful.

            I thought I had visited all of the cemeteries on Rt. 40/State Road but I’ve come up with at least five more that I don’t have copied as well as three on Mash Fork.  Even though we may have copied these and other cemeteries years ago, there have been many additional burials there and many new cemeteries have been started.

            I have been re-reading Edward O. Guerrant’s book which tells of his travels through our region many years ago when there were no public schools as we know them.  The only schools of that era were taught mostly by ladies sent from other areas by churches. Sometimes there was no school building and students were taught in their own homes or churches.

            What a contrast to our schools of today!  What I’m leading up to is we have lost those schools that used to be at Plutarch, Tick Lick, Gunlock, Seitz and all the other communities and now have only three consolidated schools, Salyersville Grade School, South Magoffin Elementary and North Magoffin Elementary. 

            I’m familiar with the one-room schools as I walked (or skated, in winter) to school and then later I happened to be a school board member when our county first began to consolidate the smaller schools.

            We are continuing to see changes in our county.  We hear of the Brushy Fork crew that is working to attract industry as well as have a park in that area.  The Civil War reenactment brought on the idea of a park in the area of the South Magoffin School.

            There are many new ideas and plans that are on the forefront and we hope that progress for our county will continue.  This has been a year of people working together.  Let’s keep the momentum going!

            Here we are in a brand new year – 2011!  We will continue working on gathering the genealogy and history of our area and hope that several of the publications we have “in the works” will get finished.