This article, written by Todd Preston, President of the Magoffin County Historical Society, was taken from the January 31, 2013 issue of THE SALYERSVILLE INDEPENDENT newspaper.

            We’ve had some mighty cool temperatures here for the last few days but it didn’t keep us from having our regular meeting of the Magoffin County Historical Society last Sunday.  Attending were Jimmie Allen, Kay Bentley, Dallas Bentley, Charlotte Gillum, Dorothy S. Wireman and Connie A. Wireman.  Dallas and Kay’s son Johnny Bentley dropped in to visit also and we enjoyed having him here.  We had some good input into this year’s plans for the historical society and will look forward to the February meeting when we hope to bring everyone up to date on the various stages of our uncompleted projects as well as make preliminary plans for 2013. 

            Jimmie Allen brought in some very nice copies of pictures of Dr. Walter Connelley that Belsey Connelley had given him.  One of these is a view of Dr. Connelley on his horse Tony that was taken here in Salyersville.  Apparently it was taken at the same time as another picture we have on file but this one shows the houses on Coal Branch in the background.  Jimmie has also brought in another segment in his Magoffin County Circuit Court Orders that he copied for us. This will be printed in our quarterly Journal.

            Quite some time ago Katherine Bailey contributed a copy of her collected area obituaries to us for printing.  We were able to get two volumes (with an index) in print but the other three volumes have been waiting for someone to finish them.  Well, Kay Bentley took on that job so now we are looking forward to having these completed soon.  Katherine and her daughters are certainly to be commended for their help to us.  They have added some very good material to the historical society.

            We read in the Lexington Herald newspaper this week of the passing of Marie Jeannette “Jean” Moore Prather who died on January 21 at age 92.  She was born in Dunbar, West Virginia on 27 April 1920 to Albert K. Moore and Anna Cooper.  Jean married John G. Prather, Sr., son of James F. Prather of Somerset, KY.  She had a very full and varied career during her lifetime and was always proud of her childhood home, Salyersville.  We are indebted to her for helping with our military series and providing material on the Moore family for our books.

Her family came to Salyersville in Magoffin County in the early 1920’s and her father Albert K. Moore became editor of the Salyersville Independent in 1924. He was also a co-owner of the newspaper along with Carl Cooper, Earl Cooper and George Moore.  Albert Moore remained with the newspaper until 1962 when he sold the newspaper to Earl C. “Bob” Prater.  At his death on 8 October 1989 Mr. Moore was buried in the Blue Grass Cemetery here in Salyersville, alongside an infant daughter and his first wife Anna.  Anna was the daughter of John Franklin Cooper and Mary Berthena May. 

            During World War II days, Mr. Moore printed a great many pictures and news items about our military men and women from Magoffin.  Among these was an announcement on 4 June 1943 that his daughter Jean Moore and another Magoffin girl, Home Economics teacher Anna Magill, had become candidates for officer training in the Waves.  Jean Moore was the first Waves officer candidate from our county with the second being Miss Magill, daughter of Reese Magill.

            Mr. Moore was very active when Magoffin County celebrated our 100^th birthday in 1960.  He was appointed treasurer of the Centennial Committee and produced a booklet entitled Magoffin’s First Century which helped pay for that event.  This was the only book printed on our county until the Magoffin County Historical Society was organized in 1978 and we began compiling and printing a series of books based on our history and genealogy. 

            During one of our early organizational meetings we came up with the idea of having a Magoffin County Founders Day celebration to honor our early settlers.  When discussing possibilities, it was brought to our attention that former Independent editor Moore had always advocated a memorial of some type for William “Uncle Billy” Adams.  Uncle Billy was a large land owner of our town which was known as Adamsville at that time and provided business locations and jobs for many people.  He was also one of those who worked toward getting our county formed and was instrumental in having it renamed Salyersville to honor our representative Samuel Salyer who served in the Legislature during that time. And so it was chosen that our first Founders Day in 1979 was to honor Uncle Billy Adams and all Adams families of the area.

            Betty Jo Arnett Lykins took the historical material of the 1860 time period and worked it into an amazing community play for our Sesquicentennial celebration in 2010.  Her manuscript and many pictures of the actors will be in the upcoming book on Magoffin’s 150^th birthday.

            We would also like to mention that our historical society has two volumes in print that cover the 1940s war-time and the years up to 1955 articles that appeared in the Salyersville Independent.  These papers were provided to us by Robert “Bob” Williams from the collection of his parents Charlie and Mattie Byrd Williams.  Mrs. Betty Whittaker of South Carolina put them into book form to help us finance our historical activities.  These are very interesting to read and give a good history of our county for that time period.  We do have these for sale here at the historical society.