From the earliest years of settlement in the Kentucky mountains there were close family ties between the counties. Usually a little extra research discovers, for example, that a son who moved with his wife into Perry County had done so to be near some members of her family or that a study of maps reveals that although living in different counties a family has just spread to the opposite side of a mountain.

Stories passed down through the generations sometimes tell of reasons for a family split. There are several such tales of family splits happening during the Civil War with some of the Union side and some on the Rebel side. Current research supports such a possibility in the Middleton family.

Walter and Sarah Turner Middleton settled on Yocum Creek. Most of their sons and daughters remained in that area where descendants still live. Of their five sons, two definitely served in the Confederate forces. Their son David served in the Union forces and it is believed that his brother James did also.

Although there is no definite proof, the movement of David into Letcher County and James over on to Upper Martins Fork may possibly have been caused by a split with their father, an owner of many slaves and probably a Confederate sympathizer.

Within a few years of the war, both David and James were murdered. David is known to have been killed by his cousin, James Turner. Traditional stories in James Middleton's family state that on his return from the war, James was captured by a band of men who tortured, dismantled and killed him, hiding his bones in a hollow log in the Devil's Den section of Stone Mountain. Both of these killings may have been related to bad feelings leftover from the war.

No probably cause has yet been discovered as to why Rollen Eversole and his wife Lucinda Campbell moved south to Harlan from the Perry County area where the rest of their families lived. Rollen was the son of John Eversole and the grandson of Jacob Eversole. Jacob had immigrated to this country from Germany, living for a time, it is believed, in Pennsylvania and North Carolina before settling in Perry County with his several sons.

Some time prior to 1850, Rollen and Lucinda moved to Harlan where they lived for the rest of their lives. They had 12 known children. William, the oldest was born about 1837. His sister Elizabeth was born about 1839. She married Green Clay. Next was Mary, born about 1841.

Their second son and fourth child was John C. Eversole. He and his wife Juda moved a short distance from his father's farm on Poor Fork, over in to Letcher County. Next to be born was Nancy. Into 1879, at the age of 34, she married Jason Jackson as his second wife. Sarah eversole was born about 1847 and married William Cornett. Her next sister, Catharine, was born Nov. 23, 1849, on Cloverlick. She married Ambrose Dixon.

The next child Green A. Eversole was born about 1853 and married Sudie Bailey. Green was a prominent lawyer in Harlan. Born about the same year as Green was Granville Eversole and he may even have been a twin to Green. The two brothers were followed by Lucinda, born about 1856. On May 20, 1857, a daughter Tennessee was born. As she is not listed in the 1860 census, it is presumed she died in infancy.

The twelfth and youngest child of Rollen and Lucinda Eversole was born some time after the 1860 census and named Rollen after his father. Rollen Eversole Jr. married his older sister Nancy's step daughter, also named Nancy, daughter of Jason Jackson and his first wife Elizabeth Young.