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Editor's Note:
Readers of The Kentucky Explorer have been introduced to the
Rev. John J. Dickey in past issues. Remember that he was a traveling
preacher throughout the eastern part of the state during the
years between 1880 and 1925. He helped to establish numerous
churches and at least two colleges. He was also a teacher and
a newspaper editor. However, his most enduring gift to us today
may well be his diary that he kept faithfully during some 50
years of his later life beginning in the 1880s. In all, over
6,000 pages written in his own hand make up this interesting
digest.
In this journal of his, Dickey often wrote down accounts of events
daily. Much of the material concerns his day to day life. However,
during the late 1890s he began to gather family history on various
families he met in his travels. We are offering these interviews
to our readers in the hope that they will be appreciated in the
sense that Rev. Dickey intended. These interviews were written
word for word as they were given to Rev. Dickey. Nothing has
been changed.
Wesley Fields
I was born in Perry County, Kentucky, in 1839. My father was
James Fields. He was born in Claiborne County, Tennessee, about
1815. He came to Kentucky before he could remember. My grandfather
was John Fields. He was born in Virginia but moved to Tennessee
before coming to Kentucky. He died in 1852. He and Joe Wilder
were soldiers in some war together, when my grandfather was 17
years old, so it must have been the Revolutionary War. He never
got a pension. My grandfather's children were Stephen, William,
Easan, Jacob, James, Lucy (Nathan Young), Sallie (Wilson Baker),
and Rachel (Jack Baker).
John D. White
Manchester, Kentucky
April 21, 1898
I got the following items chiefly from James Campbell of Hazard
and Isom Stamper of Turkey Creek, Letcher County. Fifty families
assembled at the mouth of Walker's Creek, on New River, North
Carolina, with a view of immigrating to Kentucky. This was in
the spring of 1806. They sent two young men to "spy out
the land" viz. Austin Couch and another whose name I have
forgotten. They struck the North Fork of the Kentucky River near
its head, passed down it to Boonesboro, went on to Lexington,
returned by way of Boonesboro, up the North Fork and back to
Virginia and reported a goodly land abounding in game and fish.
They said that where Hazard is was a cane break. There was no
one on the river. On May 15, 1807, they landed. The Campbells
came into land where there were four acres of land cleared, but
the fences were rotten, and everything indicated it had been
long deserted. Campbells brought horses and cattle and such household
stuff as they could carry. The patriarch, John Campbell, was
a severe Christian. He trained his children as an orthodox Scotchman
would do. One tradition claims that the two young men came down
Troublesome. (Both accounts may be true; they might have come
one and went back the other.) Mason Combs was the original Combs
in the mountains. He settled on a high hill below the mouth of
Carr's Fork, on the opposite side. Mace's Creek was named for
him and is really Masons Creek. His brothers, "Danger"
Combs and Gen. Elijah Combs, came later. He laid out a patent
about the mouth of Mace's Creek making his beginning corner a
"mill seat" upon which a mill was never built until
two years ago by one of the Halls.
Isom Stamper, says that a man named Casebolt settled at the mouth
of Livefork at a very early date. He had a stepdaughter, Polly
Davis, who used to go to Turkey Cove, Virginia, alone for flour,
when she was only 14 years old. She would stay all night going
and coming at Wallace's on Poor Fork of Cumberland just above
the mouth of Longs Creek. Her route was as follows: From the
mouth of Line Fork, she went down the North Fork of the Kentucky
River to the mouth of Leatherwood, up Leatherwood one-half mile
to the mouth of Little Leatherwood to the head, over onto Turkey
Creek to near head, over onto Defeated Creek, down Defeated to
forks, up left hand fork, nearly to head, cross over to Trace
Branch, down Trace Branch to Line Fork to a point about two miles
below Hurricane Gap, across Pine Mountain by Log Rock, so called
because the Rock, 30 feet long, is in the shape of a log, down
to Wallace's on Poor Fork just above mouth of Loony. Up Loony
to the head over the Big Black Mountain, where it is 4,000 feet
high and down Loony into Virginia to Turkey Cove. There are four
Loony Creeks, one in Harlan, one in Virginia, and two in Letcher
County. They were named for the Loony's early hunters.
One of them was killed on Defeated Creek by the Indians. Isom
Stamper got his from Polly Davis herself. She married Samuel
Lusk and her descendents now live on North Fork about the mouth
of Line Fork, Perry County. They have the finest body of walnut
timber in the mountains of Kentucky and will not sell it. The
Lusks are numerous in Garrard and Madison counties.
A family named Leslie now lives at the mouth of Line Fork, Letcher
County. Old General Leslie Combs was of this stock. The 50 families,
or the greater part of them, eventually settled in the mountains
of Kentucky. The Casebolts of the Sandy Valley are descendents
of the above (mentioned) Casebolt. Isom Stamper who lives on
Turkey Creek, Letcher County, is 92 years old.
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