Pioneers of Jackson County - Part 5

   UPPER MILL CREEK

   SETTLEMENTS ON FROZEN CAMP
   
   The first man to settle on Frozen Camp was the redoubtable Captain
   Billy Parsons, who erected his humble cabin on the eminence at the end
   of the point near the Iron Bridge, now cut off by the public road.
   There were two reasons for choosing this location. One was the bottoms
   were low and subject to overflow when the creeks were at flood tide.
   The other, the principal factor in locating all the pioneer cabins,
   proximity to a spring.
   
   This settlement may have been made between 1820 or 1830, possibly a
   few years earlier. A sketch of Captain Parsons will be found in the
   Parsons Family given earlier in the book.
   
   A half mile or less up the creek, Isaac Rollins made the first
   clearing on the present farm of L. D. Parsons. There are some old
   apple trees still standing, where he planted an orchard, near his
   house, which was in the bottom near the creek. He is said to have
   settled here then he married Polly Parsons, about 1843.
   
   The old orchard across the road from the Parsons house was planted by
   William Fouty. He married a Ruble and lived there in the 1800's, in
   the old Rollins house.
   
   At the next farm above, now owned by John Hyre, a son of John A. and
   Rebecca Rader Hyre, who lived on what is now the "Hamp" Parish farm,
   on the creek below, first settled about a quarter of a mile below a
   road crosses to Gay, on Elk Fork.
   
   The next place above is the Old Payne farm, where Levi Payne once
   lived. J. C. M. Rhodes lived there, and D. W. Knopp, son of Gideon
   Knopp, has built across the creek, up on a point from the old building
   site.
   
   David Knopp received a deed for land here, for maintenance of Paynes
   widow, after his death. She was still living at Knopps in 1906, and
   said to be one hundred years old.
   
   A quarter of a mile below, lived George W. Vint, who came from Lewis
   County, about 1856.
   
   He is said to have been rather an eccentric individual. He died August
   9th, 1869, and was buried on the farm, at the upper side of the road,
   a short distance below the house. The graves, three in number, are
   enclosed with a cut stone wall three and a half feet high on the lower
   side.
   
   There was a pine tree there when the grave was made, but it is gone
   now.
   
   His wife and her sister are buried by his side. She was Miss Elizabeth
   Johns, and died April 29th, 1872, in her seventieth year.
   
   She was a sister of the late William Johns, of Elk Fork, and aunt to
   Mr. W. L. Johns, and Mesdames John A. Harpold, J. H. Evans, and Martin
   Casto.


   KELLEY FAMILY
   
   A fourth mile below the Vint farm is the old home of Mr. John L.
   Kelley, who moved there in the woods in 1855.
   
   John L. Kelley was born at Front Royal, Virginia, March 1st, 1803, and
   his father was a soldier in the war of 1812.
   
   John L. married Tacy Davis, of Harrison County. She was born in
   Harrison County, October 10th, 1805, and died February 10th, 1876.
   
   Of their children were:
   
   William D. Kelley, born in Harrison County, March 28th, 1826, married
   Margaret Carter who was born in Lewis County, in 1828, and moved to
   Roane County (then Jackson County) in 1849.
   
   W.D. Kelley was in the Seventeenth Virginia Cavalry (Confederate), and
   served eight years as Commissioner of the County Court in Roane
   County. He lived on the Lower Flat Fork of Poca.
   
   Ichabod Kelley was in the same command as his brother, and died at
   Montgomery Springs, Virginia, in May of 1863.
   
   Abraham Kelley was a local preacher of prominence in the Methodist
   Church.
   
   James Kelley married Amazetta Rollins, daughter of Isaac Rollins. She
   died about 1889, on Little Creek.


   HOGSETT FAMILY
   
   A Hogsett came from Pocahontas to Lewis, or Braxton County, and
   married a Cochran. They had nine children.
   
   Jim Hogsett married a Wolfe.
   
   Henry Hogsett married a Wolfe.
   
   A daughter married Tom Rader, son of Will Rader.


   SETTLERS ON JOE'S RUN
   
   If the Joe Parsons cabin was on the site of the store house at the
   mouth of Joe's Run, it was by years the first on that stream. If at
   the ford below them, the first was the cabin built at the above
   mentioned spot. By just whom, or at what date, does not appear
   clearly. "Wash" (G.W.) Rader, married Nancy Miller, a daughter of
   Kitts Miller, of Millwood. He was clerk in the first store at the
   Three forks of Reedy. He lived here for a time before moving to
   Station Camp, where C. Shinn now resides.
   
   Probably the first improvement up on the run was at the John Smith
   Carder place.
   
   By whom this improvement was made, I have been unable to ascertain. A
   man named Adams is said to have lived there at a comparatively early
   date. He was the father of Andy Adams, who was in the hardware trade
   with John McIntosh, and in 1840, the house was occupied by Adam's
   widow and her father, familiarly spoken of as Old Tommy Tolley. Later,
   Lige Runyan lived here. He was a son of the Runyan who lived out
   between Ripley and Ravenswood, on Sandy, about a mile. He was a
   Methodist exhorter, and married Harriet Smith, sister of John V. His
   son, Sam, was a preacher.
   
   Mrs. Westfall said, September, 1906, that "Wash" Rader, who had
   married after she came from Indiana, in 1839, built a cabin on the
   site off the storehouse, and moved into it about that date.


   WIBLIN FAMILY
   
   After the M. C. Rader farm, mentioned previously, was the Old Wiblin
   farm. There is a diversity of opinion, as to who first settled here.
   
   One account says the first improvement was made by Moses Doolittle,
   about 1826.
   
   He married Susanna Seaman, who was born in Monongahela County, in
   1801, and died in Ripley.
   
   Moses Doolittle, born in 1802, died in Ripley in 1877. He married on
   Reedy, lived there a while, and at the salt works on the Big Kanawha.
   
   Williamson W. Wiblin lived for a number of years at this place. He
   came as a sailor from France (says M.M. Parsons), and married Deborah
   Ruddle (note that Dr. John Rader married Polly Ruddle). He lived at
   this place when the pike was built, and kept the first tollgate out
   from Ripley.
   
   He died in 1858.
   
   His children were:
   
   James, married Virginia Lattimer.
   
   Washington was killed in the Confederate Army.
   
   Mike lived at White Sulphur Springs.
   
   Malinda married Charles Parsons.
   
   Elizabeth never married.
   
   Catherine married William Knopp.
   
   James Wiblin was born August 7th, 1831, and died May 24th, 1903, aged
   seventy one years. He married Catherine Knopp. He had seven children
   by each marriage.
   
   He made the first improvement on the left fork, at Frozen Camp, and
   afterward lived on Mill Creek, at the first house above the Henry
   Knopp place.


   JOHN A. HYRE
   
   The first man to erect a cabin at the Hemp Parish farm was John A.
   Hyre, who married Rebecca Rader.
   
   This is one of the most beautiful locations for a residence on Mill
   Creek.
   
   It is situated on top of a gentle eminence, and well back from the
   creek, which it overlooks for quite a distance. Immediately in front,
   the opposite hill comes down to the water, while a little wooded
   hollow and a rocky bluff add picturesqueness to the scene. A run flows
   into the creek a short distance east of the house, which comes down
   out of the hills a half mile back, reaching the creek after meandering
   over a wide rolling plain.
   
   Above the run, the hill runs back in a smooth slope of easy grade,
   that along the creek is a cliff sixteen or twenty feet high, of rocks,
   here and there covered with a scant soil, to which cling a row of
   spruce pine and other trees and bushes, their gnarled roots fastened
   in the crevices of the cliff.
   
   Jesse Allen, whose wife, Mahala Flesher Allen, a sister of George
   Flesher, of Reedy, who died here in 1861, was long a resident of this
   spot. He sold it to D.W., son of Elias Parsons, in 1865.
   
   Hyre was living here in 1839. The land was a part of the Doolittle
   farm in 1826.


   LUKE PARSONS FARM
   
   The Parsons farm was a part of the John Allison survey, and probably
   belonged to either the M. C. Rader, or Captain Billy Parsons tracts.
   Macklin Walker bought the land where Parsons lives, and lived there in
   1839, and until the time of his death, in 1841, someone said. Possibly
   this was included in the Wash Burdette purchase.
   
   The farm was known during the war as the Old Davy Cole farm, and in
   1866, Cole sold it to (three hundred fifty acres) Joshua F. Parish.
   Afterward, Parish sold forty acres to John Smith, and he to Parsons.
   
   The Walker house stood below the run, and nearly where the up_creek
   end of L. Parsons barn now is.
   
   Just above Luke Parsons, on a little point, where the old road used to
   go up the hill, stood one of the "old field" school houses, much
   patronized in the pioneer days. Built over seventy years ago, there is
   nothing left to mark the site of this early temple of learning, save a
   pile of rocks there the capacious chimney stood, and the gigantic
   boulders, which served as corner stones and still lie near the spot, a
   monument of the past.
   
   The schoolhouse was built of round logs, and the low wide door reached
   to the first rib, while the fire place, with its wide stone hearth,
   occupied the end next the creek, and one log was chopped out on the
   side opposite the door and over the writing bench, to serve as a
   window, greased paper serving to admit the light, while excluding some
   of the coarsest of the cold. Some low white oak trees stand round the
   spot, and the creek still rolls majestically thro the bottom lands at
   the foot of the hill, as of yore, when it wound its way among the
   stately white columns of sycamore and birch.
   
   The little brook flowing near is a shady secluded spot, and the whole
   wears an air of peace and restfulness. Here went to school, in the
   sixty odd years ago, many of the old men and women of the Mill Creek
   valley, Henry Knopp, Hiram, Lewis and Jim Parsons, Jim and Wash
   Wiblin, Van, Exra and Flora Graham, Mary and Elizabeth, daughters of
   Michael C. Rader, Angeline Parsons, and others, many of whom have
   passed to the great beyond.
   
   Henry Bigler wielded the rod, and taught the three R's, for three
   terms, and Clark Westfall was another of the "Old Field masters", who
   taught at the primitive academy.
   
   As a yet earlier day, the Rev. W. P. Walker, the most renowned
   minister the Baptist Church of West Virginia ever possessed, was
   enrolled as a scholar at this humble cabin, and from its rude walls
   started on the road to fame.
   
   When this house began to fall into decay, another and more pretentious
   one of hewn logs was built, a quarter of a mile further down the
   creek, which, from the clay bank in the road near, was known as Red
   Hill.
   
   Still later, and some time after the inauguration of the free school
   system, a building was erected under some oak trees, in the mouth of a
   little hollow, below the present residence of Hoyt Knopp. It served
   both for school and church purposes, until the completion of the
   Baptist Grove Church, at Frozen Camp, in 188


   REMINISCENCES OF PIONEER BIG RUN
   
   The first settlements on Big Run was that of Charles Parsons, at
   Gravel Run, as noticed in a preceding part of this book, where his
   son, Elias, continued to live, and that of his son, Charles, Jr., near
   where the old apple trees are growing, just beyond the present
   residence of C.A. McVey.
   
   This house was built about 1827, and about two years later, or 1829,
   John Bord, who had married Nancy Casto, the widow of George Casto's
   oldest son, and sister of Elias and Charles Parsons, moved from Little
   Creek, to a little cabin at the mouth of the large run, which comes in
   from the left, just above the mouth of Big Run, since known from him
   as Bord Run.
   
   He lived here several years. The cabin stood for a long while, and may
   have had other tenants, beside William Davis, who wintered here in the
   1800's.
   
   Mr. Hiram Parsons relates that when a boy, he used to take dogs and
   hold them in the old cabin, and watch flocks of wild turkeys fly off
   the hill back of the church, where George Mitchell used to live, and
   settle in the cornfield in the bottom around the house. When they
   became engaged busily eating the corn, he would let the dogs loose,
   and they would pull some of the turkeys down before they could rise
   and fly out from among the standing corn. This was between 1840 and
   1845.
   
   Another interesting reminiscence Mr. Parsons tells of his boyhood days
   __
   
   When about five years old, he and a sister were sent one day on an
   errand to a neighbors, Mr. Thomas, who lived up Little Creek at the
   second hollow above the C.C. Casto house.
   
   They crossed the hill from Gravel Run, coming down on to Little Creek,
   near the Casto house, much as the path does at this day. Just before
   reaching the Thomas house, they passed through a swampy place, grown
   up with grass, where, seeing several pretty little kittens, such as
   they had never seen before, they determined to secure one a piece of
   them, to take home for pets.
   
   With this idea, they gave chase, but to their surprise, the kittens
   did not run from them, and though they never laid hands on the pretty
   little animals, they caught them, thoroughly.
   
   In going home, just as they came, down on Gravel Run, back of the
   blacksmith shop, a pheasant flew up from the path, with about a dozen
   young ones, which, fluttering up around their feet, frightened them,
   so that they ran all the way home, surely an eventful trip for the two
   little children.
   
   One night, about 1840, perhaps, the wolves came down into the swamp
   above where the Big Run bridge now is, and howled dismally. Parsons
   put his dogs on them, and ran them clattering up the hill through the
   dry leaves. When they got to the top, and away from the house, the
   pack of wolves turned on the dogs and closely pursuing them, ran them
   back almost to the house.
   
   When Parsons "sicked" his dogs, and the wolves again turned and ran
   across the valley, but when they found the men were not after them,
   again brought the dogs home in a hurry. This was kept up back and
   forth until the man got tired and called his dogs off.
   
   A few days later, he found the carcasses of nine sheep torn and
   mangled by the wolves. Organizing a party of men and dogs, they
   succeeded in surrounding the animals in the low gap, near what is
   known as the old Hudson field, and killed all of them, five or six old
   ones, and nine pups.
   
   These were the last wolves seen in this section.
   
   In the earliest days of the Mill Creek settlement, those who tried to
   keep sheep would build a rail pen against the back side of the cabin,
   which was covered with heavy logs, and in this, the sheep were folded
   at night.
   
   Charles Parsons and his brother, Captain Billy, would often hunt
   together. One of them would follow around the hillside, and through
   the coves on the Little Creek side of the ridge, the other on the Big
   Run side. Whenever one heard the other shoot, he was to go to the top
   of the ridge and ascertain if he had killed game, and if so, help to
   dress and hang it up out of reach of wolves. Thus, they would follow
   round the hills, sometimes over on to Trace Fork and Sandy water,
   until evening, taking a packhorse the next day, to bring in their
   spoils.
   
   One day while thus engaged, probably about the winter of 1824,
   Charles, when around near the low gap, heard the report of his
   brother's gun in the opposite cove. Being a clubfooted man, it took
   him several minutes to reach the top of the ridge. When he gained the
   summit, a strange sight met his gaze. Down the hillside a short
   distance, he could see through the underbrush, the form of a large
   buck, with its head down, rearing up partially, and churning down with
   its forefeet.
   
   Seeing there was something wrong, as indicated by the peculiar actions
   of the deer, he hastily raised his rifle and fired, the ball passing
   through its body, near the heart. With the report of the gun, the buck
   reared to his hind fee, bringing up the redoubtable Captain Billy, a
   man of full two hundred pounds weight, hanging on to his horns, and
   pitched off down the steep hill, in the agony of death.
   
   Billy's hunting shirt was cut into strings by the knife_like hoofs of
   the deer, and he carried marks of the encounter for many days.
   
   Mrs. Westfall, mother of the late E.B. Parsons, related some
   interesting reminiscences of the Rader family. They were of Dutch
   stock, and very superstitious, having firm faith in signs and omens,
   tokens, prognostications, witches, ghosts, and the whole long array of
   the mystic and supernatural, which formed a part of the life's creed,
   with so many of the early settlers.
   
   About 1839, Mrs. Westfall's mother being lately widowed in Indiana,
   lived in a cabin across the creek from the schoo lhouse atLuke
   Parsons.
   
   Being dependent on the labor of her hands to support herself and
   children, the widow, Mrs. Graham by name, worked arou nd among the
   neighbors, to earn means of support for the family left to her care.
   
   At one time, while she was sewing at young Mike Rader's, some strange
   epidemic malady attacked the cattle of Mill Creek valley, and many
   were lost, among others, a beautiful young heifer that Mrs. Graham had
   wanted to buy, but which Rader had refused to part with. On the death
   of the heifer, they suspected the widow of being a witch and laying a
   "spell" on their cattle through spite, so Abe was dispatched to Mason
   County, to consult a witch doctor who dwelt there. This worthy
   directed the young man how to proceed to discover who the witch was,
   and accordingly, the next animal that died, he opened, and taking from
   it the liver, went to the house, and walking backward to the fire
   place, without speaking, cast it upon the glowing logs, where it lay
   sizzling and frying, until it burned up.
   
   Mrs. Graham was in the room when Rader came in, but, suspecting
   mischief, refrained from speaking or noticing him. Consequently, the
   charm failed to prove good, as the witch was supposed to come and
   remove the liver before it was consumed.
   
   Once Mrs. Westfall, then a child of about fifteen or sixteen, seeing a
   black boy, Pete, one of the Rader slaves, whipping a pot of milk which
   was boiling on the fire, asked what he was doing. He replied
   enthusiastically "Whoppin de 'ole witch. My! but I'll stripe her old
   back".
   
   The custom was if a cow gave bad milk, to put the milk in a pot or
   "kittle", over the fire, and after it came to a boil, whip it with
   withes until the milk was all whipped out of the pot.
   
   Lawrence Hopkins, who lived at the Otmer Parsons, or Wiblin farm, was
   a witch doctor, and was sent for by Old Joesy Rader, to "cunjer" with
   a boy who was 'doin no good', and supposed to be under the malign
   influence of some neighboring witch. Whether the spell was lifted does
   not appear.


   KOONTZ FAMILY
   
   Michael Koontz married Susan Rader, a daughter of Michael Rader, Sr.
   He lived in Mason County.
   
   A son, John Koontz, (sometimes spelled Kouns) lived at the mouth of
   Elk Fork, on the Young farm.
   
   He was a Justice of the Peace, in 1839.
   
   Henry Koontz was an early settler on the Fisher farm, on Grass Lick.
   
   Nelson Koontz, a son of Henry, and John Koontz, were on the Greene
   venire, at Ripley.
   
   John and Henry both moved to the vicinity of Ravenswood.
   
   Michael Koontz, who married Susan Rader, had a son, John Koontz. His
   wife's name is not given. Their children were:
   
   Nancy Koontz, who married D.J. Jack Keeney, as a second husband.
   
   Maggie Koontz.


   SMITH FAMILY
   
   John V. Smith lived up on the left branch of Big Run, about 1844, and
   was the pioneer of that section.
   
   His house was on the site of the present residence of Mr. E.L.
   Waybright. The head of the creek was in woods many years later. The
   cabin he first lived in was known as the Corbett house.
   
   He was living with his third wife, who was a daughter of John W.
   Carder, one of the first pioneers of Upper Sandy.
   
   His first wife was a Hardman, and the second a Hartley.
   
   Gary McPherson came from Harrison County, and located at the forks of
   Big Run, in 1854 or 1855. His father, James McPherson, lived in
   Loudoun County, Virginia, where Gary was born.
   
   Gary McPherson was of Scotch stock, and his mother a Loudoun, sister
   of Old Billy Loudoun. She crossed the ocean, from England to Virginia.
   His wife was Keziah Davis, a daughter of John Davis, of Harrison
   County, whose history will be given elsewhere.
   
   Their house was burned by Captain Boggs, in July, 1862, as were those
   of Charles Parsons, and his son, Wilson. Their children were:
   
   Sam McPherson.
   
   Irvin McPherson, married a Hartley.
   
   Gary McPherson.
   
   Mary McPherson, married Ephraim Carder.


   BUTCHER FAMILY
   
   Peyton Butcher, the fourth child of Samuel and Hannah Drake Butcher,
   was born June 28th, 1786, "somewhere in the mountains". He came to the
   Little Kanawha valley from Randolph County, where he had married
   Elizabeth, daughter of George Renick, in 1810.
   
   He was manager for years of the Creel saw and grist mill at Bald Eagle
   Riffle. He died in 1853, and his wife died in 1850.
   
   Of his children:
   
   Samuel, born in 1811, married Jane Melrose, daughter of James and
   Eleanore Dawkins Melrose. Melrose was in the war of 1812. They raised
   a large family.
   
   Effie, born in 1814, married Burr Triplet, son of Major Robert
   Triplet, of Pleasant County. He died in 1890, and is buried at the
   Triplet graveyard, at Willow Island.
   
   John A., born in 1819, married Eleanor Dawkins, daughter of Thomas.
   Thomas Peyton was their son, and Benjamin Neal Butcher was a grandson.
   Deborah, Emily and Peyton were other children.
   
   Thomas Jefferson, another son, married Lodena Lee. Of their children,
   two were residents of Jackson County, Burr and John, who lived on Big
   Run.


   AYERS FAMILY
   
   Jeremiah Ayres lived at the "Clem" Davis place, a short distance up
   the right fork of Big Run, at the opening of the Civil War.
   
   Ayres was from Carrol County, Ohio, and father of Jeff Ayers, formerly
   of Wirt County, and Buenos Ayres, County Superintendent of Roane
   County, in 1876.
   
   There was another family of Ayres, who lived near Ripley, William G.
   Ayres, and his wife, Phebe. They came from Pocahontas County, and are
   buried in the Old Ripley graveyard, side by side.
   
   He was born in 1800, and she twenty four years later, so may be a
   second wife. He had a son, John, buried by them, who died in 1857,
   aged twenty four years.
   
   The Harpers were in some way connected with them.


   THE HENRY KNOPP FARM
   
   The next farm on Mill Creek, above the village of Frozen Camp, at the
   old Parsons homestead, is that of Mr. H.F. Knopp, at the mouth of
   Little Creek. As has been recorded, the first settler here was Joe
   Parsons, the squatter, who built a cabin there before 1818.
   
   Joseph Bord, of Reedy, had bought this land in October, 1823, and
   moved on it that fall, or the next spring.
   
   In 1826, George Knopp bought the farm, Bord then lived in a double
   pole cabin, which stood where the pike now is, between the creek and
   Mr. O.H. Knopp's barn, and about three rods from the latter.
   
   There was a well in the middle of the road, next Little Creek, from
   the cabin.
   
   The road, or trail, then came up on the south side of Mill Creek,
   crossing back of the village of Frozen Camp, and following the bank of
   the creek, to the Knopp's place, crossed Little Creek below two large
   sycamores, which still stands, below the new iron bridge, and ran to
   the forks of the road near the large elm, where one path went up
   Little creek, around the fence, and the other followed with the
   present site of the pike, past Knopp's log barn, and then bore to the
   right, through the bottom again.
   
   The first one hundred acres of the Knopp farm was patented in 1818, to
   W.L. Parsons. It was a strip of bottom, reaching from the Duke line to
   the upper line of H. Knopp's farm, and about three quarters of a mile
   up Little Creek, and a plat of the land looks like the diagram of a
   gerrymandered Congressional district, or the picture of some
   prehistoric animal.
   
   The whole country had been patented in large blocks, to eastern land
   speculators years before, but these had been allowed to lapse, or by
   some means, the bottomlands were repatented, in tracts of one to two
   hundred acres, by actual settlers. Later the old claims were brought
   up by the North American Land Company, and other companies, and many
   harassing, vexations and costly lawsuits followed.
   
   Sometime in the 1800's, Knopp patented another tract of land, of one
   hundred fifty acres, comprising the bottomlands, up above the mouth of
   Buffalo, and later he bought of James Dundas and Benjamin Kugler,
   trustees of the North American Land Company, eleven hundred and thirty
   six acres of hill land adjoining what he already owned, for twenty
   five cents per acre, the company also releasing its claim on the two
   hundred fifty acres of bottomlands already in his possession.
   
   The pioneers though the hill lands unfit for farming, and left them as
   hunting ground and game preserve.
   
   Below is a copy of the first patent, issued to Captain Parsons, for
   the original Knopp land.
   
   James P. Preston, Governor of the Commonwealth of Virginia.
   
   To all to whom these presents shall come, Greeting: Know Ye, That in
   conformity with a survey made on the 30th day of January, 1813, by
   virtue of a Land Office Treasury Warrant. No. 4751, issued the 12th of
   June, 1811----
   
   There is granted by the said Commonwealth unto William Lowther
   Parsons, A Certain Tract or Parcel of Land containing One Hundred
   Acres, situate in the County of Mason, and bounded as followeth,
   towit.
   
   Beginning at a large Lynn, on the right hand side of the left hand
   fork of Big Mill Creek, on a line of a survey of one Hundred Acres,
   made for Charles Parsons, it being the land whereon Joseph Parsons now
   lived.
   
   To have and to hold the said Tract or Parcel of Land, with its
   appurtenances to the said William Lowther Parsons, and his heirs
   forever. In witness whereof, the said James P. Preston, Governor of
   the Commonwealth of Virginia, hath hereunto set his Hand and causes
   the lesser Seal of the Commonwealth to be affixed at Richmond, on the
   thirtieth day of March, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight
   hundred and eighteen, and of the Commonwealth, the forty second.
   
   (signed) James P. Preston
   Seal of Virginia
   
   This patent is written on parchment, and is in a good state of
   preservation.
   
   On the back of the document are two entries:
   
                              Willm L Parsons
                                  100 Acs
                                   Mason
                              Recorded and Exd
                           Book No. 67, page 205
                                      
   William Lowther Parsons hath title to the within granted land.
   Wm. G. Pendleton
   Reg. L. Off.


   KNOPP FAMILY
   
   The ancestors of George Knopp came from Germany to Pennsylvania, where
   they became incorporated in the host of frugal, industrious Americans,
   known as "Pennsylvania Dutch", and, like so many of their neighbors,
   drifted south, into the valley of Virginia.
   
   George Knopp was born in the Shenandoah Valley, on July 23rd, 1794,
   and died on Mill Creek, February 18th, 1855, aged sixty years, five
   months and eight days. This is the record taken form his tombstone in
   the Baptist Grove Cemetery, but his son, H. F. Knopp, thinks he was
   probably several years older. His wife died at the home of one of her
   children, in Indiana.
   
   He married Catharine Richwein, and lived for a time in Meigs County,
   Ohio, and in Mason County, West Virginia, before moving to Mill Creek,
   in 1826.
   
   When Knopp came to Mill Creek, the country was yet wild and full of
   game of all kinds.
   
   There were three little fields of two or three acres each, cleared,
   one around the house, one up Little Creek, and one across where the
   present residence of Mr. Knopp stands.
   
   He belled his horses and turned them to the woods, where they fared
   well on the rich succulent pasturage of wild grasses, pea vines, weeds
   and "brouse".
   
   Sometimes when wanted, they would be found two miles or more out the
   ridge, between Buffalo and Little Creek, or up the streams from the
   house.
   
   Cattle and sheep and hogs also ran at large. The sheep did not do much
   good in the earlier years, owing to the ravages of the wolves and
   bears, and frequently had to be penned in the yard, or against the
   cabin.
   
   Hogs, however, throve wonderfully, notwithstanding the onslaught of
   the wild beasts. Once or twice a year, the neighbors would try to
   corral all the hogs in the woods, each marking with his private mark,
   all the pigs and shoats that were judged to be the offspring of his
   swine, and in the fall when they were fat with the rich abundance of
   oak, chestnut, and beechmast, each would drive in and butcher, or
   shoot in the woods, dress, skin, and pack in anything he could find in
   his mark.
   
   Many hogs, however, annually escaped notice, and the woods was full of
   wild hogs, which like the game, was accounted the common property of
   all.
   
   Once, while Mrs. Knopp was out hunting her cows, she met in the path
   in the woods, a large sow, with a brood of little pigs running along
   before her, while the mother was fighting back a large black dog that
   sought to levy toll on her family. Mrs. Knopp hollowed at the dog,
   which, being a wolf and afraid of a human being unless very
   hardpressed by hunger, bounded away into the forest.
   
   George Knopps children were given according to age:
   
   Gideon, married Nancy Stewart, of Reedy, a daughter of Old Billy
   Stewart. He settled first on his fathers farm, where the late Henry
   Brown lived. He died about 1858.
   
   Lucinda, married John Stewart, a brother of Old Billy. She lived on
   the J. J. Miller farm, below Buffalo, after his death, on the Kyger
   farm on Reedy, about 1846.
   
   Phoebe, married Basil Wright, who lived for a time on his fathers
   farm, near Reedy.
   
   William, married Catharine Wiblin, and settled on the Charles C. Casto
   farm, on Little Creek.
   
   Sevilla, married Kelley Flesher. He lived on the Hall farm, on Little
   Creek, and on the lower part of his fathers farm, three quarters of a
   mile up Left Reedy from the Three Forks.
   
   Abraham married Delila Carney, a daughter of Spencer Carney, of Middle
   Fork of Reedy.
   
   Henry Fisher, married Rachel Ann Cain, a daughter of Alfred Cain, of
   Reedy.
   
   Kitty Ann, married Thomas Bord, son of "Sandy" Bord, of Reedy. After
   his death, she married James Wiblin, and lives on a part of the home
   place above Henry Knopps.
   
   There was a son, Jesse. He lived on Right Fork Reedy, where Rev. C. E.
   Tallman now resides. He went west later, as also did Kelley Flesher
   and William and Abraham Knopp.
   
   Henry Knopp was born in 1838, and so is now about sixty eight years
   old. He lived on the old home farm, where he was born.
   
   His father brought the first wagon to the upper Mill Creek Valley.
   This was about 1833. He remembers when all the hill land and much of
   the bottoms were standing thick with heavy oak, poplar and walnut
   timber.
   
   He and neighbor boys used, while "sky-larking", of Sundays, to visit
   the old improvement where peach trees were still bearing in the
   thickets, as late as 1850.
   
   The first teacher he remembers in the old field schools was Henry
   Bigler, who taught three terms at the schoolhouse near L. Parsons,
   sometime during the forties. Bigler is remembered by many of the elder
   people of Mill Creek and Reedy, and was afterward a Mormon elder in
   Utah.
   
   Another teacher he recalls was Clark Westfall, who lived on Frozen
   Camp.
   
   The Knopp family were Democrats in politics and members of the
   Presbyterian church.


   OTHER SETTLERS BELOW BUFFALO
   
   James Brown, who married Dorcas Carney, lived above the Gideon Knopp
   (now Henry Brown) place, across the road from F. Bee's. He died there
   in 1878, probably was the first settler.
   
   Gideon Knopp built at the Henry Brown place about 1841.
   
   Above this was the George Knopp farm, and, in a cabin in the mouth of
   the run, just below Buffalo City, and nearly opposite Mr. T.J.
   Mitchell's, lived Charles Sheppard, who married Ann Parsons, daughter
   of Captain Billy Parsons (no kin to Jonathan's family).


   LITTLE CREEK PIONEERS
   
   All the farms on Mill Creek, above the mouth of Buffalo, are of
   comparatively recent date.
   
   The first settlers on Little Creek, were, as before narrated:
   
   Joseph Parsons                before 1818
   
   Joseph Bord                               1823
   
   George Knopp                           1826
   
   The only other pioneers were:
   
   John Bord, who settled two miles up on the creek, about 1827.
   
   James Thomas, who located a short distance above the Knopp line,
   probably sometime in the thirties.
   
   The land about the mouth of Little Creek was patented in 1786, by
   Albert Gallatin. There were two blocks, one known as the Gallatin No.
   15, the line of which crossed below the Thomas house, and above C. C.
   Casto's barn.
   
   The other, the Gallatin tract No. 22, the upper line crossed at the
   upperside of what is commonly known as the Alpin land. On this land
   were both the pioneer settlements mentioned.
   
   Thomas' house was at the mouth of a rough hollow that comes down from
   the hills, on the left of Little Creek, about one fourth mile above
   the Casto house.
   
   This improvement is supposed to have been made not later than 1832 or
   1833. Thomas's wife was a sister of Colonel Armstrong, and came to
   Jackson County, it is said, about the same time, that is in 1831.
   
   The Bord settlement was made about a mile above this, at the mouth of
   the run on which E. Mitchell resides.
   
   Here he settled in the heavy beech bottom, and cleared out about five
   or six acres, including a strip on the lower slope of the hill. He
   stayed here about two, possibly three, years, but, becoming
   dissatisfied, "pulled up stakes" and left it, saying there was too
   many hazel bushes in the bottom for it to ever be farmed.
   
   One year he lived here, he sowed a piece of land in buckwheat, but it
   was completely taken by the wild turkeys.
   
   Examination of some of the stumps of the second growth timber, which
   sprang up over the cleared fields after they were abandoned, showed on
   a poplar seventy one rings, and on two oaks, seventy and seventy two
   rings, respectively. This timber was cut by Mr. Elihu Burdett, in
   1901, for W.L. Rector, who purchased the timber, and manufactured it
   into lumber and crossties. Some of the second growth trees cut two
   ties to the block.
   
   From this record, kept by Mother Nature, I deduce that the place was
   abandoned about 1829.
   
   When the ground was cleared, in 1903, the old corn rows still showed
   through the woods, on the hillside.
   
   The house was built on a little elevation, almost on the creek bank,
   and a few rods above the mouth of the Mitchell run.


   BUFFALO TRAIL
   
   Less than a half mile below this, on a forks point of a hollow, which
   enters Little creek at Dr. Conants residence, is the old pack horse
   trail, which crossed from the settlements on the head of Sandy, to the
   mouth of Buffalo. In places, it is worn and washed to a depth of five
   or six feet, among the rocks and boulders. Over this path has been
   carried many a bushel of salt, haunch of venison and jug of whiskey in
   "ye olden, golden time".
   
   There were all the settlements on Little Creek, claiming the name of
   pioneer.
   
   William Knopp built at the Casto place about 1850, and there were
   settlements on the head of the creek about 1854 or 1856.


   APLIN FAMILY
   
   William Aplin was born in Connecticut, in 1813, and died at his home
   on Billy's Run, at the head of Elk Fork, in 1907, at the advanced age
   of ninety four years.
   
   The Jackson Herald says that fifty or sixty years ago he was a
   shoemaker at Ripley.
   
   Two brothers, Benjamin and Welcome Aplin, bought large tracts of land
   at delinquent tax and commissioner's sales. Sometimes they paid as low
   as five cents per acre for it.
   
   These lands passed by inheritance to William, who owned many thousands
   of acres, and was, at one time, reported to be the wealthiest man in
   the county. A large tract of this land was on the waters of lower
   Little Creek.


   RHOR FAMILY
   
   In 1852, John H. Rader, of Greenbrier County, bought a large tract of
   land on the head of Mill Creek, and in 1859, he sold a tract
   containing two hundred twenty five acres, lying at the forks of Little
   creek, to Philip Rhor, and at the same time, Rhor's brother-in-law,
   Joseph Eagle, bought of Alfred Cain, of Reedy, a piece adjoining,
   which contained two hundred sixty eight acres. The Rader land was
   wholly in the woods, but there had been a cabin on the Eagle farm,
   close the lower line, and near where the first Jefferson schoolhouse
   was built.
   
   I have been told that this cabin was built by William Rader (a
   brother, perhaps, of John H. Rader), for the purpose of trying to hold
   the land in some legal controversy.
   
   Philip Rhor was born March 16th, 1808, Rockingham County, Virginia. He
   came from Barbour County to Mill Creek, the spring of 1860, having
   purchased land the fall before.
   
   He died May 11th, 1874.
   
   A daughter, Hester, who died the fall before, is buried by his side,
   in the Street graveyard, about one mile east of his residence.
   
   Another daughter married Jonathan Smith, and he made the first
   improvement at the mouth of Gardiner's Run, a short distance below the
   forks of the creek. Smith was a son of John V. Smith, of Big Run, and
   he and Rhor, his wife's brother, had a little corn mill on the creek
   above his house, which was carried away by a flood.


   EAGLE FARM
   
   Joseph Eagle was born in Augusta County, Virginia. He died March 8th,
   1884. In 1833, he married Harriet J. C. Rhor, who died also in 1884.
   In 1859, he bought the Little Creek land, which comprised the most of
   Poplar Fork. He bought of William Rhor. He moved on the land sometime
   during the spring of 1860, and built a large hewed log house, just in
   front of where the house now stands, on the point between the two
   branches of the creek. This house faced down stream, and was
   surrounded with locust trees, which had been planted around it, one of
   which is still standing.
   
   Eagle lived on the land eleven years, and cleared strips along the
   bottom, and in places back on the hills. A son built where W.H.
   Ludwick lives, and a son_in_law at the present residence of Mr. I.
   Gordon.
   
   Mr. John Hall once told me that his father, Samuel Hall, contracted
   for the Poplar Fork land before he came to Mill Creek, or about 1850,
   and came out from Shenandoah County and cut a set of cabin logs,
   intending to build in the little bottom lot, below the residence of
   the present owner (myself), that he went back and brought his family
   cut as far as Dempsey Flesher's, on Reedy, where he put up for the
   night. During the night, there fell a snow over two feet deep, which
   prevented him from proceeding on his journey. This snow laid so long,
   he had to stop at Mr. Flesher's about two weeks and during that time,
   he bought the Joe Miller place, on Reedy, where William Davis now
   lives, it having the manifest advantage of a house into which he could
   move his family.
   
   He first came to Reedy in 1851.
   
   In bygone days, pine tar was the only lubricator used for wagons and
   other vehicles, and not only did farmers burn pine knots to extract
   the tar for their own use, but, occasionally, one would burn a kiln,
   there being a considerable commercial demand for the article in the
   neighborhood, and at Ravenswood and other points. The method of
   extracting the tar on a small scale, for home use, was as follows.
   Having first selected a rock, flat, smooth and large enough to answer
   the purpose, a trench was cut in circular form on top of it, with
   outlet for the escape of the liquid pitch. A sugar kettle was then
   turned over the split pine knots, which had been piled on this rock,
   and the tar roasted out by building a fire on top of the kettle.
   
   There were several tar kilns burnt on this farm, one place on top of
   the ridge toward the head of Gardner's Run, a kiln has been burned
   fifty years ago, and though the ground, which is a stiff red clay, has
   been cleared and farmed for twenty five or thirty years, the spot is
   clearly discernible by the burnt clay.
   
   There is also a rock by the side of the run, near the house, where tar
   was burned under a kettle, piling dry wood over it.
   
   In burning a tar kiln, a large quantity of pine knots were gathered
   and having been split coarser than for burning under a kettle, were
   carefully piled, provision being made for ventilation and the escape
   of the tar. The pine was then fired, and when well started, was banked
   with earth, like a charcoal pit, and the wood burned with as little
   air as possible, would smolder and char, the tar running out into a
   vessel provided for its reception.


   FLOODS AND WASHES
   
   Since first known to white men, the Mill Creek valley has been visited
   by sudden heavy downpours of rain, which put the creeks and smaller
   streams out of banks, and send the floods of water over the bottoms.
   The streams are consequently continually cutting and wearing on their
   banks, sometimes cutting on one side, and again on the other, as the
   current may chance to set. Since the hills have been cleared, these
   raises are more frequent and sudden, as the water runs off the surface
   into the hollows, and drains almost as fast as it falls. The roots
   being rotted in the ground, the erosion, too, is much greater, but
   there is not as much driftage as formerly, nor does it lodge and pile
   up, damming the waters and turning the streams into entirely new
   channels, as when the bottomlands were standing in brush and timber.
   
   Sometimes, the bed of the stream would be completely changed in a few
   hour's time, and the old channels so completely filled with drift and
   gravel that its course could not be traced on the surface after a few
   years.
   
   In cutting a ditch in 1895, I found under the surface, a heavy drift
   of logs, limbs and chunks buried under a foot or more of soil, and
   absolutely no surface sign that the stream had once flowed where I was
   trying to induce it to go.
   
   In June, 1903, there was a sudden rise of about five feet, in less
   than an hour, in Poplar Fork, and neighboring streams, which laid bare
   much that had been hidden for many years.
   
   I found in one of my fields the next morning, projecting from the side
   of a newly cut bank, what had been an impromptu roller for a one horse
   sled, roughly hewed out of a green hickory pole, with a very dull axe,
   the scars made by the nicks in the axe being as plainly visible as
   when first made. There were also marks made by worms under the bark,
   showing the piece of wood had been laying about a year before being
   hermetically sealed under the three and a half feet of gravel and
   dirt, perhaps forty or fifty years before.
   
   In another place where the run cut through a drift two or three feet
   below the surface, I found poplar logs with bark on, shell bark
   hickory, beech leaves, walnuts, twigs, etc., etc.
   
   Both these drifts were covered with a blue grass sod, and showed no
   signs on the surface that the stream had run there before.
   
   In another place, in a bank of heavy red clay, was the form of a maple
   log, perhaps sixteen or twenty feet long, sound, and bedded in the
   clay.


   BURNING CHARCOAL
   
   In his younger days, Uncle Henry Ludwick had been a charcoal burner,
   and he gave me the following interesting account of the manner of
   manufacturing the coal.
   
   The wood used was mostly pine and chestnut oak. Black smiths, who used
   charcoal altogether for the forge, would take a little hickory and
   would take yellow poplar, but did not like to, pine and birch were
   preferred.
   
   The wood was out into four foot lengths and split, like cord wood. In
   building the kiln, as much as twenty five cords would sometimes be put
   in a kiln. The wood was placed upright, three tiers deep, an aisle
   would be left open through the middle until the last, through this
   passageway they would drive with a sled, unloading on each side. When
   completed, a triangular furnace was provided, with a flue up through
   the center of the kiln, which was banked with dirt, about four inches
   thick on the ground, and thicker on the shoulders and top. Before
   putting the dirt on, the wood was thickly bedded with leaves, to keep
   the dirt from sifting through. Limbs, laps and rough knotty sticks
   were built next the outside. Holes were left around the top of the
   kiln, for ventilation. The wood would char up through the middle,
   across the top, and down the outside. If one side burnt too freely,
   the vents on that side were closed, and more holes punched on the
   other, so as to throw the fire that way. When there was too much air,
   the kiln would burn out hollow. Both green and dry wood were used. The
   green made the hottest fires, the steam keeping the kiln hot. One cord
   made forty bushels of charcoal, and a good hand could set and cover
   twenty five cords in a day. A man was allowed one cent a bushel for
   cutting and burring.


   LUDWICK FAMILY
   
   Joseph Eagle, by some means, lost his home on Poplar Fork, the land
   being sold to Alfred Cain, Esq., of Reedy, and by him in 1871, to
   Henry Ludwick, of Barbour County. He moved out in 1871, but Eagle
   refusing to give possession before the 1st of March following, he
   moved for a time in a cabin built by Alexander Kelley, where A. Duke
   now lives, which then belonged to Ziba Weas, of Sandyville.
   
   Henry Ludwick was born on the 22nd of August, 1822, on a run that
   empties into Mill Creek, about a half mile from the North Mountain
   road, near the Shenandoah line in the northern part of Rockingham
   County. His great_grandfather, Jacob Ludwig, emigrated from Saxony, at
   a very early day, locating near Somerset, Somerset County,
   Pennsylvania. He died May 13th, 1909 aged eighty six.
   
   Nothing is known of his family, except on son, George who is supposed
   to be American born. He spoke the Pennsylvania dialect of German, and
   talked English very brokenly. His wife was Maria Magdelena Weirs,
   nothing is known of her people, or where they were from, except that
   she was German.
   
   George Ludwig died in Rockingham County, Virginia, about 1827, at near
   four score years. His children were Philip, Joseph, John, George,
   Daniel, Solomon and Jacob. There had been an earlier Jacob, who died
   while a child. George and Jacob married Muellers. Solomon moved to
   Highland County, Ohio.
   
   The girls were Margaret, who married John Bowman, and lived two or
   three miles from Mt. Jackson, and had a son named Philip Bowman.
   
   Elizabeth married Joseph Dotson, and who also lived near Mt. Jackson.
   
   Mary married Isaac Hogg (German pronounced Hawk).
   
   Jacob Ludwick married Nancy Mueller -- anglicized to Miller later. He
   lived in the upper part of Rockingham County, until 1832, when he
   moved to Hardy County, locating on Trout Run, a few miles from the
   mouth. Trout Run empties into Lost River, at Wardensville, and below
   that place, the stream is known as the Great Cacapon River.
   
   Jacob Ludwick was in the war of 1812. He lived south west of
   Wardensville. Their children were:
   
   Henry, married Margaret Shoemaker.
   
   Sarah, married a Moore.
   
   Anna, married Isaac Rhoe.
   
   Jacob, married, wife's name not known.
   
   Jacob Ludwick died in 1864, at the age of sixty two, and his wife on
   the 19th of May, 1865.
   
   Nancy Mueller was a daughter of George Mueller. He had a brother,
   Henry, who lived in Preston County, Virginia, after whom her son,
   Henry, was named. Her mother was Margaret Wolf, of near Mount Jackson.
   
   George Mueller's children were:
   
   Jacob and Joseph lived in Shenandoah County, Virginia.
   
   George in Hardy, and Henry in Licking County, Ohio.
   
   Elizabeth married "Mike" Teets, and lived in Preston County, Virginia.
   
   Susan married Abram Rhodes, in Shenandoah.
   
   Anna married a Bauers, in Shenandoah.
   
   Barbara married "Jake" Teets.
   
   Henry Ludwick's children were:
   
   William Harrison, born in 1842, married Jane Street.
   
   Mary June, born in 1844, married John Street.
   
   John Henry, born in 1846, died at the age of twenty years.
   
   Sarah E., born in 1848, married Ezekiel Mitchell.
   
   Uriah McCasson, born in 1851, married Matilda Bush.
   
   Nelson, born in 1853, married Martha Hartley.
   
   Nancy C., born in 1857, married Sanford Conant.
   
   Amos, born in March, 1841, died in July, 1842.
   
   Eli McClelen, born July, 1861, died in December, 1861.
   
   William Henry Ludwick served in the Union Army, and after his
   discharge, re_enlisted and served for a time in the western Indian
   wars.
   
   I have heard Uncle Henry Ludwick speak of the carrier pigeons, now
   long extinct, so this is probably an experience from his days in the
   eastern part of the state.
   
   He says he remembers seeing them come along toward evening "so thick
   they darkened everything". They would select a patch of timber for
   roost, and would then alight upon one tree, so heavily limbs would
   often be broken off. In the morning when they moved on, there would be
   many left behind, dead or wounded, from the broken timber.


   MITCHELL FAMILY
   
   Marshall Mitchell had come from Barbour County, to Jackson County,
   sometime before the war. William Hoffman, who had married Mitchell's
   sister, came in 1866.
   
   Bet, a daughter of Henry Ludwick, was to marry a Hoffman, a cousin of
   Daniel and William Hoffman. The old folks approved of the marriage,
   but she fell out with Hoffman, and "ran off" with "Jake" Mitchell, got
   married and came to Jackson County.
   
   It was while on a visit to her that Henry Ludwick became so pleased
   with the country that he sold his farm in Barbour County, and came to
   the waters of Little Creek, of Mill Creek.


   STREET FAMILY
   
   Old George Street followed his children, who had married William H.
   and Janet Ludwick. He bought the Rader farm, on the divide between
   Little Creek and Buffalo.
   
   He donated the lot for the graveyard, and for a church, and did most
   of the work in building the church, Buffalo or Streets Church, until
   disabled. One day, while hauling logs for the church, he ran a
   splinter in his foot, which resulted in his death, from lockjaw.


   LITTLE CREEK CHURCH
   
   The Southern Methodist Church on Little Creek was built in 1894. The
   first place above was settled by Kelley Flesher. John Stewart's widow
   and family lived there about the 1850's, and Samuel Hall moved to it
   about 1858 perhaps, and lived there until his death in 1886. (Ziba
   Weas owned the land, and had the first cabin built).
   
   Samuel Hall was born December 7th, 1811, died June 18th, 1886, and his
   wife was born one year earlier and died one year later. They came from
   Preston County.


   FOUNTAIN FAMILY
   
   The first house on the Duke farm was built in the mouth of the run,
   where the present stands, and convenient to a spring.
   
   It was built by a man named Fountain, and finished and first dwelt in
   by Alec Kelley, a son-in-law of Ziba Weas.
   
   Before this, perhaps about 1856, an old man by the name of Fountain
   had bought the land, and coming on partially completed a house, he and
   his two sons wintering under the large rock by the road above Duke's
   house.
   
   His wife dying that spring, he sold off his goods, and went back from
   where he came, instead of moving his family out.
   WEAS
   
   Zeba Weas married Phebe Leach. He came to Jackson County in 1840, and
   lived at Ripley, two years before moving to the head of Little Creek
   of Mill Creek. He owned a little mill at his home on the head of Mill
   Creek, on which he both ground corn and sawed timber. Mrs. Westfall
   says he owned the Sam Hall place, on the head of Little Creek of Mill
   Creek.
   
   While in Ripley, he owned a hotel. He married first, according to Webb
   Chapman, Phebe Leach. He is said also to have married a Miss Hornbeck,
   and they had a daughter, Virginia.


   DAVIS FAMILY
   
   The first improvement on Buffalo after that built by Joe Miller, on
   the Stewart place, and possibly earlier in point of time, was that of
   William Davis, a wild and picturesque character, said to be half
   Indian, who was a squatter on what was afterward known as the Rader
   land, before 1843.
   
   He first appears on the scene living near Sandyville. Later, he had a
   shanty on Trace Fork, and in 1843, we find him on the lower end of the
   Morrison farm, in a camp shed, at the mouth of the run, below where M.
   W. Morrison lives, near where the old mill shanty stands. Some reports
   say this camp was at the forks of the creek at the site of Widow Dunns
   residence, but one who has lived nearby for the last sixty years, and
   certainly should know, says it was at the next run above. Some say he
   had one of his camps in the bottom below David Lattimers house. He
   lived by hunting and trapping, and raising little patches of corn and
   "truck", and had "slashed down" most of the narrow bottom, from
   Lattimers to Dunns. He is described as being tall and straight, with
   long, coarse, black hair. His "houses" were made of poles pinned fast
   to forks set in the ground, and sometimes open at one side, for summer
   use.
   
   When he left Buffalo, he built up in the cove, near the spring, just
   over the hill from the old Rader, or Street house. It is said the
   stones where the chimney of this shanty stood are still visible,
   although I failed to find them when I visited the spot in August,
   1905.
   
   I found, however, one of the most beautiful spots in all the country,
   for the lover of nature. I quote from Journal of the trip:
   
   "This spring is about seven rods from the brook, and five from the top
   of the hill.
   
   It comes out under a large rock, which has been worked off back for
   several feet, and the ground graded and filled below it, so as to make
   it freely accessible to cattle, though the water, which is clear and
   nice, but with a muddy and unpleasant taste, is in a walled basin, and
   some eighteen or twenty inches below the surface.
   
   It is in a shady and picturesque spot, above is a cliff of rocks about
   eight feet high, overhung with saplings, an oak, gum, sassafras, and
   two or three hickories, all intertwined by a very large grapevine.
   
   Just below is a large poplar tree, a red oak, and an ash, while other
   trees grow along the sides of the sprint drain, to its mouth, where,
   on the brookside, stands a large black willow, a foot in diameter, and
   fifty feet high, and leaning toward the spring at an angel of about
   forty degrees. About fifteen feet of the willow top is broken over to
   the ground.
   
   The hillside opposite the brook is uncleared for several rods back,
   and is a tangle of brush and vines. Some distance above the mouth of
   the spring run is a large pool of clear water, reflecting in its
   limpid depths the rocky walls and bushes which line its banks.
   
   A narrow strip of bottom reaches almost to this spot, over grown with
   tall grass and weeds, and waving with purple ironweed and wingstem,
   while walnut trees and copses of brushwood form an inviting retreat
   for roaming cattle, truly a pretty spot."
   
   Quiet and peaceful as s this charming spot today, it was in the days
   when the clouds of war hovered over the land, the scene of a
   premeditated and wilful depredation of war, thought being committed by
   men wearing the uniform of soldiers, it is characterized by a name
   less harsh. It occurred at a large rock, which lies even with the
   surface of the ground, a little ways from the spring.
   
   Joseph Rader, who lived at the Dunn place, was accused of harboring
   and assisting bushwhackers, and was decoyed to the spring with food,
   by two men disguised as Confederate soldiers, and shot by others
   concealed in the brush. This occurred in the fall of 1863.
   
   Davis had one of his shanties here, and another in the bottom, across
   the creek from the Hall house, where Mr. Stewart now lives.
   
   This was known as Stump Cabin, and was built by cutting off three
   saplings which were found growing in the proper position, and a post
   set in the ground formed the fourth corner. To these were nailed split
   slabs, or puncheons, and the whole roofed with long clapboards, which
   were carried back and forth, as Davis moved from his hill home to the
   bottom, and back again.
   
   One year (probably after this), Davis lived in the Old Bord house on
   Big Run, and later he was stowed away for three months with the
   rheumatism, at John Smiths, above there.
   
   The impression is that he went back east, perhaps to Harrison County.
   
   Mr. Lattimer thinks he went out about the Falls of the Kanawha, above
   Bulltown.
   
   Possibly, he may have been east, and returned again.
   
   There is no record of his wife that I have heard. Possibly she was
   dead before.
   
   There are three or four children mentioned, a son, Joe Davis, and
   another son called Abe Davis, or Andy, or perhaps there was one of
   each name.
   
   There was also a daughter-in-law, who was Daviss housekeeper, while
   she lived. This girl, whose name was "Sinder Davis", died suddenly,
   falling off her chair dead.
   
   She left two children and, it is said, soon took to coming back,
   finally Davis decided, after she had returned several times, that if
   he saw her again, he would speak to her and find out why she could not
   rest easy in the spirit land.
   
   One day not long after, while going through a wheat field, he saw the
   spook coming along the narrow path, meeting him, as she stepped to one
   side for him to pass, he mustered up the courage to ask her what she
   wished, in coming back to earth.
   
   The ghost answered that being old and poor, he could not take the
   proper care of her children, so she wanted them put out with someone
   who would be able to educate them and bring them up right. Davis
   promised that this should be done, at which the girl expressed her
   satisfaction, and turned to pass on. When leaving him for this the
   last time, she, it is said, extended her hand to shake hands with him.
   This, however, was more than Davis had bargained for, and he strove to
   avoid the proffered hand. Two of the girls fingers struck his wrist,
   leaving yellow marks, which, of course, he carried with him to the
   grave.


   LATTIMER FAMILY
   
   George Lattimer was born and raised in Washington County,
   Pennsylvania, and married Jane Niven, a native of Carrol County, Ohio,
   but at the time of her marriage, a resident of Washington County.
   
   After some years, he emigrated to Jackson County, Virginia, settling
   on the Left fork of Sandy, about a mile above Sandyville. This was in
   1838, and about 1840, he moved to Sycamore.
   
   Four years later, he purchased a large boundary of land on the head of
   Buffalo, on which he erected a log house, which is still standing,
   probably the oldest log house in Roane County, or on Mill Creek.
   Through sunshine and storm, for sixty two years, its walls have given
   shelter to occupants of four generations.
   
   It looks like it may have been built of small round logs, and
   "skutched down" --- or hewed after raising--- outside and in, is a
   story and a half high, with old fashioned porch on one side. It is now
   under its fourth roof.
   
   George Knopp and his son, William, "took up" the north and east
   corners, respectively. The latter, then a young man, is, if living,
   now very old and the former has been dead over fifty years.
   
   They commenced moving, on packhorses, the first of March, 1844, and
   the family took possession about the middle of April.
   
   There was not then a family living between Gideon Knopps and George
   Goffs, at the mouth of Long's Run, on Reedy, save only the shack of
   Davis, previously mentioned.
   
   There was, however, a little improvement and empty cabin at the mouth
   of Buffalo, where Joe Miller had lived.
   
   The house stood by the side of the trail leading from the Carney
   colony on Reedy, to the Mill Creek settlements.
   
   When Lattimer first came to Buffalo, deer and wild turkeys were
   abundant everywhere, and there were a few bears, wolves and panthers
   yet in the woods.
   
   Though three miles to the nearest neighbor, neighbors were more
   plentiful than they are today, as was shown by the attendance at the
   log rolling and husking bee.
   
   The neighborhood reached from below the three forks of Reedy to the
   mouth of Joe's Run.
   
   Mr. David Lattimer, a son of the pioneer, lives on the home place, and
   has been a resident of the original house, since his newer dwelling,
   which stood by the run, several rods away, was destroyed by fire about
   several years ago. I spent a pleasant hour with him in December, 1904,
   when he gave me many interesting reminiscences of the early days of
   Jackson County. He was only seven years old when the family came to
   Buffalo, and but one when his father first became a citizen of Jackson
   County.
   
   He remembers going to school, when a little lad, to a little log hut,
   which stood in the Walnut grove above the Sycamore bridge, with a
   fireplace occupying the most of one end.
   
   The first teacher he recalls was "Sol" Parsons, of Parchment, a son of
   a descendant of Captain Bill.
   
   He afterward lived on Long's Run, where Mr. Andrew Chancey now lives.
   
   Sam Black was the first minister he remembers hearing.
   
   He has seen plows with wooden mold boards used, but never plowed with
   one himself.
   
   Mr. Lattimer has in his possession a pair of iron tweezers, which his
   father made for the purpose of extracting a honey locust thorn, which
   he had the misfortune to get in his bare foot while picking up
   walnuts, near the Sycamore schoolhouse, when he was five or six years
   old.
   
   Uncle David vividly recalls that he would sometimes go barefoot until
   nearly Christmas, or even later some winters, when he was eight or ten
   years old. Sometimes he would wear a pair of one of his older sister's
   winter before shoes.
   
   In those days, all wore home made shoes, built from heavy cowhide
   leather, built by the neighborhood cobbler, both on week days and
   Sundays.
   
   He has gone barefoot through snow half knee deep, to feed the sheep.
   He would first get his feet as hot as he could bear at the old
   fashioned open wood fire, run to the oats stack, pull out a sheaf and
   stand on it, rubbing the snow off of his feet with one hand, while he
   jerked sheaves from the stack with the other. Then he would scatter
   the oats in the rack, and run home as fast as he could, heat his feet
   again, and when they were glowing hot, run out again and take a play
   in the snow, yet notwithstanding, this exposure and privation, he
   never was sick but three days until after he was grown, and that was
   when he had the measles.
   
   When the Lattimers first came to Buffalo, in 1844, the nearest post
   office was at Ripley.
   
   There were mills within seven or eight miles, but they had a mortar in
   which they pounded corn, to make meal for their bread.
   
   This meal was made into "raised pones", "corn dodgers", and "johnny
   cake", the latter baked on a board before the fire, and, said the
   narrator "when eaten warm with milk for supper, better than any pie".
   
   George Lattimer's children were:
   
   George, born August 14th, 1832, died about March, in 1906. He married
   E. Stalnaker, and lived on the upper part of his father's place.
   
   Jane, died in 1853, married James Logan, also from Washington County,
   Pennsylvania. He lived and died on what is known as the John Rader
   farm, at the mouth of Buffalo.
   
   David, born in 1837, married Jennie Harpold.
   
   A daughter married a Rand.
   
   A daughter married Thomas Shephard, who built and owned the Sandyville
   mill.
   
   Martha married Elias Parsons, Jr.
   
   There are a few other settlers on Mill Creek, a mention of whose
   families should be made.


   HARPER FAMILY
   
   The Harper brothers, who came from Pocahontas County about the same
   time Ayers did was related to them.
   
   The Harpers, it is said, were wealthy and once owned the White Sulphur
   Springs resort.
   
   John Harper died in 1852, aged fifty years.
   
   James P. Harper died January 15th, 1865, aged sixty one years. The
   other brother was William.


   HOOD AND MCGREW FAMILIES
   
   Del K. Hood was born in 1838. In 1858, he married Rebecca McGrew,
   daughter of John McGrew of Jefferson County Ohio, and took charge of
   mill for Jacob Ong in 1859. About 1864 he came into possession of the
   mill.
   
   John McGrew came from Jefferson County, Ohio, to Jackson County in
   1847. He purchased the Ripley Mill from Jacob Sayre, in 1853.
   
   He later disposed of this mill and moved to Kentucky, where he
   continued his milling operations until his death, at the age of eighty
   seven years. His children were:
   
   Lemuel McGrew, who lived at Sandyville.
   
   John Plummer McGrew.
   
   A. W. McGrew.
   
   Rebecca McGrew, married Del. K. Hood.


   MAGUIRE FAMILY
   
   Another family worthy of mention, which was conspicuous in the history
   of Ripley, at a later period is that of Maguire. Three Maguire
   brothers, Robert, Edward and William came from Steubenville, Ohio.
   
   Robert Maguire, who was killed at Ripley, and Samuel Maguire, who
   built the splendid residence beyond the Sycamore bridge, were sons of
   Edward.
   
   William Maguire did not remain in Jackson County, but went south
   later.
   
   A sister of the Maguire brothers married a Connoly and lived a mile
   out of the Sycamore road.
   
                          (c) 2001 by Betty Briggs