This article, written by Todd Preston, President of the Magoffin County Historical Society, was taken from the January 23, 2014 issue of THE SALYERSVILLE INDEPENDENT newspaper.

            More cold, snowy weather is upon up as this is written so we have spent most of our time lately indoors working on various projects that we are printing.

            Thank you for your kind comments on our memory column in the first issue of the Salyersville Independent this year which listed all the deaths that we were aware of in our county during 2013.  The very last one for the year was Barbara Gayle Kennedy Jasper (1 Jun 1936-20 Dec 2013).  She lived in Glen Carbon, IL. Barbara was the daughter of the late Alex Allen and Thelma Flint and the sister of our dear friend, Jimmie Allen.  Jimmie and his daughters had to travel through that polar vortex spell of weather we had at that time to be able to attend the funeral. 

            The death of Wanda Hunt Burton’s father, Seldon Burton on January 14, also saddens us.  We became acquainted with Wanda as she has spent much time researching her family ancestry.  Back in December 2009 when we dedicated the Archibald Prater memorial marker and bench in the Bluegrass Cemetery, she drove quite a distance to be here for that ceremony.  It was a very memorable event for all those who were able to be in attendance and we have a photographic record to place in our Magoffin County Sesquicentennial book as that date in 1859 was important in the formation of our county. 

            Seldon Burton was a son of Smith Burton and Flossie Lee Howard.  His paternal grandparents were Andrew Jackson Burton and Lucinda Williams.  His maternal grandparents were Wilbur Howard and Linda Arnett.  His great-grandparents were Robert Burton and Carrie Ann Bailey; Eli Williams and Mary Jane Keeton; Calihan Howard and Sarah Douglas Powers; also Kendall Arnett and Elizabeth Fletcher. 

Robert Burton (1856-1921) married Carrie Ann Bailey (1854-1931).  Carrie was the daughter of Elisha Bailey and Lucinda Stacy.  Elisha was the son of William Bailey (a soldier in the War of 1812) and Elizabeth Thompson.  Lucinda was the daughter of Mason Clayborn Stacy and Violet Barker. As you can see this family has many relatives here in Magoffin County as well as the surrounding area.

            We learned that Seldon served our country during the Korean Conflict.  This led us to check our Veteran’s book and we were disappointed to find that he was not included in that first volume.  We have placed his entry in the volume that will contain additional information that has come to us since printing the first books.  We have attempted to find as many of our citizens who saw military service from World War I to present as we could and are pleased with the results which are recorded in about 3,000 pages but we realize we did not find info on all of them.  We feel that all our people who served our country need to be commended and remembered for their many sacrifices.  It is a history lesson in itself to read about the many places in the world where they served and their experiences.  We also included some genealogy on each veteran as we felt those reading our books would want to know of relationships.

            With the end of January looming on the horizon we have stepped up our work on finishing the final Journal for 2013 of the Magoffin County Historical Society.  This will contain an overview of the Rudd Founders Day with many pictures.  There are also many additional pages of other interesting material and pictures.  This issue will complete 35 years of printing this Journal, making a total of 140 issues.  That is a nice accomplishment for our group to look back on but we here at the “home-twenty” are in the habit of looking forward and contemplating what else can be done to preserve our history and genealogy.

            As we mentioned a few weeks ago we are attempting to finish up several of our “in the works” materials, these particularly include the last volume of the Life Along the Licking River series and the last volume of the Salute to Veteran’s series.  This last volume will include soldiers with the surnames Slusher through Wright. 

An additional volume that will include Seldon Burton will contain an index to the soldier and their family’s names as well as the many pages of additional material we have collected.  Sadly, most of these additional pages are in the form of obituaries of our comrades in arms. 

We want to send out belated birthday greetings to Jane Allen Salyer who turned 99 on January 9^th this year.  This great lady is an asset to her community and has been a good friend and neighbor to all.  She is the widow of one of our Magoffin County school teachers, the late Glen Salyer.