This article, written by Todd Preston, President of the Magoffin County Historical Society, was taken from the November 8, 2012 issue of THE SALYERSVILLE INDEPENDENT newspaper.

            The early winter weather here caused by Hurricane Sandy very nearly overcame the ghosts and goblins day of Halloween that is looked forward to by so many of our younger generation (as well as a few of the older folks – smile).  Even though we had the snowfall and rainy weather in our area we consider ourselves lucky to have escaped the severe weather suffered by our neighbors to the north and east.

            Halloween brings back memories of my early school days.  Our school group planned a Halloween party at school and I got the bright idea of wearing an actual pumpkin as part of my costume.  I got the right size pumpkin that would fit over my head and scraped all the insides out.  I dried it by holding it over the heat of Mom’s cook stove, all the while thinking I was going to win first place in the contest at school!

            But word of my activities leaked out somehow and ALL my buddies came to school with pumpkins as their headdress so none of us won first place!  Well, so much for that endeavor.  We did make good use of the pumpkins by using them for sling-shot target practice.

            Our schoolhouse on Mash Fork set above the road and a creek ran in front of it.  We dug out and leveled up a piece of ground to use as our basketball court.  Our teacher had a pie supper to make up some money to buy a basketball.  When the ball came, we found it had been sewed up on the outside and if you learned how to spin it when one caught it while it was spinning, it would literally break your fingers!

            This basketball court was up on the hill from the road and the creek.  Sometimes the basketball would be thrown out of the court and go down into the water.  Someone had to dash after it or it would float down the river and we would lose it.  You can understand why we stopped playing ball when the creek was in flood stage.

            Of course, we always carried a pocket full of marbles so we could have a marble game if we couldn’t play basketball.

            Things were pretty primitive in that old time school.  There was a toilet built for the girls but the boys had to go way up and around in the woods until sometime in later years when a boy’s toilet was finally built.

            We carried our drinking water from a spring.  I really felt grown up when I was allowed to go with a buddy to dip up a bucket of water which we both carried back to school, one on each side of the handle.

            A little later, another “team” of boys would be chosen to go back for another bucket of water.

            When I got older, I was given the job of being “fireman” of the school.  I would go earlier than the rest of the students and go walking (or sometimes skating) something over a mile to the school where I would build a fire in the pot-bellied stove.  The school room would be warm by the time the rest of students came to school.  All this work was done for a quarter a week but I felt like I was rich!

            Some of the teachers I had at this school were Fred Conley and Mollie Conley. Some of my schoolmates were Winfrey Prater, Bill Lemaster, Lyons Cooper and Bobby Powers along with my brothers and sisters.

            After I got out of grade school, I landed a job as teamster in the oilfields then went on from there to carry the mail on horseback from Falcon to Mash Fork, on to Rockhouse and then making a return trip.  This was an all-day job.

            When I got a little older I went to Ashland and worked a couple of years. From there I spent a couple more years in Alaska in the Army.  After the Army I worked awhile in Dayton, OH then came back home where I went to high school for one year.  It was during that year that I met Phyllis Joy Prater, the girl who gave me the idea of where I would spend the rest of my life – Magoffin County!  And the rest, as they say, is history!  I am thankful for our life together and for our children, Toddie, Theresa, Roy Neil, Jessica and Abby and their families.

            Projects are moving forward here at the historical society.  I see a stack of fall Journals about ready for mailing out and there are several stacks of papers here and there that show progress being made on the last volume of the Veteran’s book and the 150 years of cooking in Magoffin County book.  Looks like there are a few more stacks of papers on the tables also so there must be a whole bunch of work that needs to be finished.  

            I want to sneak a little time off from working to go through James Alan Williams’ newest book, County Court Records 1800-1816 Knox Co. KY.  This book is available from James Alan Williams, 41 Williams Fork, Banner, KY 41603 for $37 postpaid.  I see a lot of names in the book of people who later migrated on up into our area.  It’s mighty interesting reading.  We always look forward to Mr. Williams’ works as his books make the source records available for research for us right here at home.