This article, written by Todd Preston, President of the Magoffin County Historical Society, was taken from the SEPTEMBER 11, 2014 issue of THE SALYERSVILLE INDEPENDENT newspaper.

            We remember this day the nearly 3,000 people who were killed by the infamous terrorist attack on the World Trade Center in New York and on the Pentagon.   May our country never have another occurrence of the happenings on September 11, 2001.

            Many hours have been spent on entering the additional material that has come to us on our military men and women since we announced plans to print an index to our set of Salute to Veteran’s books.  This volume, in addition to the index, will contain over two hundred pages of new material.  We are printing military info, life stories, and pictures of service men and women along with their families. 

Bob Stapleton has emailed info on several of his Lemaster relatives.  Ed and Kay Dotson have responded with material on their Dotson relatives.  One of our visitors during the Labor Day weekend is being included.  He is William Lunsford, a grandson of James Monroe May and Hetty Hortense Phipps.  Mr. Lunsford has also provided us with material and a picture of Capt. William Mason Phipps, his great-grandfather, who was a veteran of World War I and a member of the National Guard.  Brian Ann Arnett is bringing in additional material on her husband’s Arnett family who were veterans. 

Our other books are also being worked on and we can see progress with several of them.  This is a slow process as we try to have everything as complete and correct as possible.

In addition to this work, we continue to have a steady flow of visitors to our library researching their family history and several who wish to tour the Pioneer Village.  A good number of visitors also come in who hadn’t been to our town before and just want to know more about us (smile).

Several people have had an interest lately in the Bull Mire/Galdia section of our county, namely the Howard family, descendants of John Howard and Nancy Cameron.  John Howard was born in 1799, a son of James Howard and Elizabeth Green.  His wife Nancy was a daughter of the Revolutionary War soldier James Cameron.

John and Nancy lived in the Howard’s Branch area in the southern part of Magoffin County near the Floyd Co. KY line before his untimely death in 1831.  The area was known in earlier days as “The Widow Howard’s Branch” and gradually became shortened to “Howard’s Branch”. 

Nancy Cameron Howard married 2^nd in 1834 to William Spry. In her older years, Nancy Cameron Howard Spry came to the Bull Mire community to live with her son Lewis Howard and his wife Elizabeth Shepherd.  We set a memorial marker for Nancy in 2007 with the help of Bob Whittaker of SC, Todd Preston, Herley Manns and James Puckett, along with Connie and Austin Wireman.

Lewis Howard was born in 1828 and died in 1890.  He married Jacob Shepherd and Elizabeth Hale’s daughter, Elizabeth Shepherd. 

The oldest child of Lewis and Elizabeth was John E. Howard, called “Horse Tradin’ Johnny” by most people who knew him.  There were a number of John or Johnny Howard’s and people often gave them nicknames in order to distinguish among them.  Johnny Howard, born 1846, married in 1867 to Polly Ann Salyer, a daughter of William “Wee Bill” Salyer and LuQueen Howard.  Less Risner told the story that William got his nickname as a result of sometimes having a nip or so of too much of the hard stuff and would say to those around him, “We..we’s a good man!”  He was a “good man” and raised a fine family.

John E. Howard and Polly Ann Salyer had a large family.  Their (1) child was Mary Howard b. 1869; other children were (2) Sublett Howard b. 1870 m. Polly Salyer, (3) Belle Howard m. Granwade “Byrd” Howard, (4) Morgan Howard m. Delaney Whitaker, (5) Mousie Howard m. Dick Williams, (6) William Howard m. Mattie Carpenter, (7) Cella Howard m. John Allen, son of George Allen; (8) Kirk Howard m. 1^st Juda Holbrook; m. 2^nd Emily Joseph and m. 3^rd. Beatrice Arnett, dau of Vaughn; (9) Maudie Howard m. Boone Howard and (10) Lacy Howard m. Pearl Carpenter.

Kirk Howard was born in 1888 and died in 1959.  He and Juda Holbrook were the parents of a son (a) Johnny Howard who married Fanny Barnett.

Kirk and Emily Joseph were the parents of (b) Daniel Howard m. Aileen Arnett; (c) Kirk Blaine Howard m. Gladys Holbrook; (d) Eva Howard m. Warnie Howard and Harry B. Gasparac; and (e) Callie Howard m. Leora.

Kirk Howard and Beatrice Arnett’s children are (f) Jesse Howard; (g) Frank Howard; (h) Dudley Howard, (i) Woodford Howard, and (j) Ethel Mae Howard.

Our visitor was interested in the ancestry of Gladys Helen Holbrook (dau of Adam Holbrook) and Kirk Blaine Howard.  Kirk Blaine was a son of number (8) above Kirk Howard and his 2^nd wife Emily Joseph.