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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.
John R. Gilbert
I was born in Clay County, Kentucky, September 18, 1841. I am
a son of Abijah and Martha Gilbert. I knew my grandfather, John
Gilbert, well. I used to be with him a great deal. When I was
14 years old, my grandfather and I were passing the mouth of
Hector's Creek. He said that here in this bottom, just above
the mouth of this creek, was where Red Bird was killed. Red Bird
and his companion, Jack, were asleep. A party of white men came
along. A young man in the party had lost his father by the Indians,
and he had taken a vow that he would kill the first Indian he
should meet. This was the first chance. He took the tomahawk
of these sleeping Indians and with it killed them and then threw
them in the river. My grandfather said he came along a short
time after the murders were committed and saw their bodies. I
think he helped to bury them, though I do not remember. He told
me the name of the young man who killed them. It was a strange
name, but I do not remember it. He said Red Bird was a peaceable
Indian and should not have been killed.
Newberry
He told me also about the killing of Newberry. He said he came
upon the men who had killed him while they were burying him.
They shot him just above where the road comes over Newberry Hill
and were burying him in the upper end of the little bottom now
washed away just at the foot of the road coming over the hill.
Begley, Callahan, Gibson, and another man were there. They asked
them what they were doing with that man. They said they were
burying him, and he had better look out or they would serve him
the same way. He told them that they had better make a sure shot
at him. He crossed the hill and went up the creek at Manchester.
Gibson went to the top of the hill to waylay and kill him, but
he confessed afterward that his heart failed him. Gibson turned
state's evidence and saved his life. Begley and Callahan were
hung.
He went on to Manchester, got the posse, and came back to Red
Bird to arrest the murderers. They went to Wilson who lived just
below the mouth of Hector's. He was afraid to keep them. Grandfather
said, "I know where we can stay. We can stay where the murderers
stay." They went on that night and found them fiddling and
dancing at the house of either Begley or Callahan. I think Begleys.
They arrested them and stayed there that night. When the jailor
or sheriff went to the jail to get the measure of the prisoners
for their coffins, they were dancing and fiddling. One said,
"Three feet and a chaw of tobacco is our length." My
grandfather told me that he lived here some years before he was
married. He had a man and his wife to keep house for him. When
in Cincinnati selling furs, the merchant gave him a book telling
him that it might be of benefit to him sometime. When he reached
home, he found it was a book of midwifery. This pleased him.
Soon after the wife of this man was about to be delivered, the
nearest neighbor to them was ten miles distant. A young woman,
who was living with them, came to the clearing and said the woman
was getting sick. Her husband started for the neighbor woman.
He told him not to spare horse flesh. Soon the young woman came
back to the clearing screaming, saying the woman was dying. Grandfather
went to the house, found her on the floor, delivered her of the
child, picked her up and put her back into the bed, and handed
the child to the young woman. This achievement gave him great
notoriety, and at once he was sent for far and near in similar
cases. He did a great deal of such work in his lifetime. The
last child he delivered (when he was over 100 years old) was
John G. White. (I found in John Gilbert's Bible now in possession
of John R. Gilbert the date of John Gilbert's birth. It is March
1757. He died March 1868. In the same Bible, I found the dates
of his children's births. His first child was born February 21,
1804. This would make him 47 years old when his first child was
born.
Martha Woodson
I was born November 8, 1807; Sarah M. Roberts, born January 25,
1806; John D. Gilbert, born 1809 and died young; Abijah, born
February 15, 1815; Joseph, born June 12, 1817; and Nancy Hopper,
born June 18, 1819. His granddaughter, Mary Jane McWhorter, was
born October 1825. She married Silas Woodson (afterwards the
governor of Missouri. J. J. D.)
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