This article, written by Todd Preston, President of the Magoffin County Historical Society, was taken from the January 27, 2011 issue of THE SALYERSVILLE INDEPENDENT newspaper.

            Hoo-ray!!  No, I didn’t win the lottery; I’ve never even bought the first ticket.  What I’m excited about is that the girls, Connie and Dorothy, have volume FOUR of the Salute to Veteran’s book completed.  This one goes from page 1,297 to 1,730 covering information on veterans with Magoffin County connections with last names beginning with McCarty and going through Profitt.

            What especially pleases me is that it has the names and information of some well decorated cousins, brothers and other relatives in this volume as it covers the Patrick and Preston surnames.  My plans are to purchase a copy to send to my younger brother Walker who made the military (Air Force) his career.  My other three brothers who are in this book have passed away; there were five of the six sons of Curt and Mollie Preston in service.  John, the oldest one, was dismissed from being in service when his wife became a mother again, leaving him with too many dependents.

Some entries in these veteran’s books that we have printed won’t show the names of parents, spouses, children, etc. as we couldn’t locate that information for them.  That is where we depended on you to help us with remembrances of those men and women who gave so much so that we have the freedoms we enjoy today.  Many of you sent us information during the year 2006 on soldiers that you knew about when we honored our veteran’s with a Founders Days celebration.  When I have been on cemetery search trips I have taken pictures of veteran’s markers and these have been included in the Salute to Veteran’s books also.

            I have tried to take pictures of all such markers through these thirty-plus years and I can picture in my mind some of those markers for our soldiers who were killed in action buried in those hollows where the old homesteads have disappeared leaving only the family cemetery, overgrown with a young growth of trees to shade our comrades of yesteryear.

Anyway, folks, if these four volumes hadn’t been printed just think how much history would be lost.   

            Our historical society was formed back in the early weeks of 1978. We met monthly for quite a while, interested mostly in our own family history and helping each other in our genealogy searches.  The post office and county offices began handing us genealogy queries that came in to them.  We would try to find answers and reply to those who had written.  We found we were writing a lot of the same information to several individuals so we began a genealogy Journal which could be sent out to people who lived away from Magoffin County.  Joe and Yvona Mason from Oklahoma came here in search of info on her ancestor William “Uncle Billy” Adams.  This reminded us that the former editor of the Salyersville Independent, Albert K. Moore had been interested in having a monument set for Uncle Billy, town founder of Adamsville, forerunner of Salyersville, KY.  This brought more interested people into our group, including Phyllis Williams Salyer, a descendant of Uncle Billy herself, Justine Adams, B. F. Adams and others along with Tim Bostic, then editor of the Independent.  This larger group decided to carry through on Mr. Moore’s plans for a memorial marker and to have a celebration marking the occasion on Labor Day.  It was suggested we honor other early settlers as well and it was decided to place Revolutionary War soldier Archibald Prater’s name on the marker along with Samuel Salyer for whom Salyersville was named.  This was our first marker project and is the pyramid shaped marker on the lawn of the Hall Community Center. To finance the marker we put together a small booklet on the Adams family and sold them.  Our first Founders Days celebration was held on the lawn of the Hall Community Center with Salyersville Mayor/Independent Editor Tim Bostic and Superintendent of Schools Herald Whitaker speaking to the group assembled.  We had as our special guests that year Dorothy Amburgey Griffith, editor of the Adams Addenda journal and Clayton Cox, editor of the East Kentuckian genealogy journal, at that time two of the best publications containing eastern Kentucky genealogy.

            Building on the success of that first year, our small group launched a second Founders Day celebration for Magoffin County in honor of the Prater family.  By this time we had a small piece of land and had begun reconstructing a couple of log cabins on it.  A makeshift stage area was built between the cabins.  Betty Lykins brought in students from her school and had them do a historical play.  Madonna Adams’ high school drama class performed in a play written by Nina K. Brown. A Prater’s Fort replica was built for crafts and booths on the parking area beside the Magoffin County Library with the help of Tom Frazier, David Gardner and others.  It was only natural that the following year we would honor the Salyer family, then came the Patrick, Arnett, Conley, Howard, Bailey, Wireman, Montgomery, Allen, Reed, Minix, May, Risner, Lykins, Williams, Helton, and Jenkins families, all leaving us with special memories.  By 1998 we were working on landscaping the courtyard next to Church Street and Steve Rudd had worked on assembling a tremendous amount of material on the Civil War so we dedicated that Founders Day year to our Civil War soldiers. A makeshift memorial was dedicated that year and later replaced by the Civil War memorial marker that you see today in the Pioneer Village yard.

We were back to early settlers the next year. “The Shepherds Shine in 1999” was our theme and what a gathering that was! 

The year 2000 was designated as “Homecoming” for all people with an interest or roots in our county and this event gave us the Life Along the Licking River series of books.  The following years were filled with special memories as we celebrated the early settling families of Vanderpool, Miller, Gullett, Whitaker and Hammond.   By this time a group known as VAMCCO (Veterans and Magoffin County Concerned Citizens) had erected a remarkable memorial in Ramey Park to honor Magoffin County veterans.  The STLP classes at our high school and grade school had done projects also in honor of veterans which gave us the idea of having Salute to Veterans as our 2006 Founders Days event.  We always knew large numbers of our men and women served in the military but we were astounded at the thousands of pages of military information that came out of this Founders Days celebration.

The three following years we enjoyed the Carpenter, Fletcher and Manns families then Sue Mortimer brought the year 2010 to our attention, reminding us that it was Magoffin County’s 150^th birthday.  We entered into a year long celebration, along with all of you which will culminate with a time capsule to be placed the 22^nd of February in the courthouse yard.  If you are interested in placing an item in this capsule to be opened 50 to 100 years from now, check with the courthouse.  If perchance there is an overabundance of materials the Sesquicentennial committee will have to select the most treasured artifacts that relate to the history of our county. 

            This leads us to the new year of 2011 and our historical society is reflecting back on our years and remembering all those who helped us achieve our goals of recording Magoffin County’s history and genealogy and, at the same time, we wonder about plans for our future. Thirty-three years seem to have passed very quickly.  We have attained most of our original goals but, all the while, we see more and more that should and could be done.