Greetings to all of you who have survived this winter! It has
been a struggle for us all with many more wintry spells than usual of snow
and ice. Perhaps the worst aspect was the many nights of frigidly cold
weather temps that dipped well below zero. Yes, I’ve survived this blast
of snow and ice storms. I know that people up north of us have been hit
harder than we have. The weather reporters said we had worse weather than
Alaska. Now I remember the weather in Alaska because I spent two years
there while in the Army. I was only eighteen years old then and ice
skating was my hobby (smile). Now, I’m nearing age ninety and I keep my
four-footed cane handy (smile).
When I was in my teens, I remember how we Preston boys, sons
of Curt and Mollie (Conley) Preston, looked forward to the time when sugar
maple trees could be tapped. We would take our clean syrup buckets to the
woods and find a suitable tree. We would cut a V-shaped notch into the
bark of the tree so as to make room for a spout to be inserted. This
spout would catch the sap from the tree and channel it into our buckets.
Mom would add a little sugar to this sap to make a sweet tea and sometimes
she would boil it down and make it into candy.
Sugar Camp, a community here in our town, was named for having
an abundance of sugar maple trees. We still call that part of
Salyersville by the name of “Sugar Camp”.
Another important tree on our forty-acre tract of land on the
Burton Fork of Mash Fork was the slippery elm. You could chew on a piece
of the bark all day without it getting tasteless and unchewable. We boys
enjoyed that. My father cautioned us not to tell of the existence of the
slippery elm tree on our property but it finally became known and someone
stripped it of its bark as there was a market for it. The tree became
extinct on our farm as well as in many other places in our county.
Another feature I have mentioned before on our farm is the
Indian Grave on the ridge above the log home where we were raised. My
mother considered it just as sacred as any other burial site. We tended
corn to just out below the Indian Grave site. As I would follow the plow
boy along, I would pick up pieces of glass-like material and carry them
out of the way to prevent them from cutting the mule’s legs. Mother told
me she had done the same thing in her life time.
We would throw those glass-like pieces down a deep ravine. I
often wondered why there was never any investigation of these being there
as oil wells were drilled close by.
I have visited other sites in our county that are called
Indian Graves. One of these was on my Aunt Eliza Powers’ farm on Mash
Fork and there are other such sites located along the Licking River.
All of this has brought another oddity to my mind and that is
the puff adder snake that seemed to be found in the pasture fields where I
used to play. I most often carried a walking stick with me in my treks
through the woods and fields. When I would come upon one of these snakes
it would make a puffing sound and strike at me then play dead. It would
then recover, coil up and make another strike. I never killed this kind
of snake as my mother considered them harmless.
I have traveled over these hills round and about in
Magoffin County about as much as anyone I know and have never seen another
viper in my adult years.
We have had some mail this week and I will go into one inquiry
from Nancy A. Cool of Waverly, OH as she had a question that several other
people have forwarded our way.
Nancy is a descendant of George
“Old George” Fletcher and Dicey Johnson through their first child
Alexander Fletcher and his wife
Ludemy Castle. She has
her line listed from her mother Mary Sue Jordan back to “Old George” and
it is correct as near as we can determine.
Her question was if her line of Fletchers would be in the
Fletcher family book that we have been compiling and we would like to tell
her that it certainly is. She also wanted to know when the book would be
available for purchase. We would like to obtain more Fletcher family
information before we try to answer this. 2008 was the year that a
wonderful memorial monument in honor of the progenitor of the Fletcher
family, George Fletcher, was set on Gun Creek. Morris Fletcher of
Michigan was the chairperson of this marker project and it has made a
place here in Magoffin County for descendants to visit and remember their
ancestor. There were several people who shared their family info with us
during 2007 and on into 2008 when we celebrated Founders Days in honor of
the Fletcher family but there was not enough material for us to make a
“book”.
For instance, with Nancy’s line we come down to her
great-great grandparents,
Garfield “Brake-Stick” Fletcher b. 1863 d. 1957) and wife Emeline
Cole.
Emeline or Eveline was
Garfield’s 2nd
wife. The name of his first wife is presently not known. His 3rd
wife was Sola McCarty who was first married to Mark Poe and second to
Charlie Cole.
Nancy’s line is through a son
of Garfield and Emeline Fletcher: Winston “Wince” Fletcher who was married
to Catherine “Kate” Nickels. However our information is very sketchy on
the descendants of Garfield. We can glean some info from census records.
We invite Nancy and other descendants to help us with their family
information. You may write to Magoffin County Historical Society,
PO Box 222, Salyersville, KY
41465 (email
[email protected]).