Since 1998 - Historical and Genealogical
Resources
for the Upper New River Valley of North Carolina and Virginia
These materials have been made available by the courtesy of the Historical Society of Southwest Virginia and Rhonda Robertson.
The Ten Washington County Years,
1776-1786
DRURY S. GODSEY 1829-1897 A COLORFUL SCOTT
COUNTIAN
VIRGINIA'S SOUTHWEST CORNER 1700-1983
WHITE'S FORGE ON BIG MOCCASIN CREEK
WHITEFORGE POST OFFICE
SOME PROMINENT LEE COUNTY EDUCATORS
SAMUEL ELBERT SMITH The Man and His Times
FIDDLIN' COWAN POWERS AND FAMILY PIONEER
RECORDING ARTISTS OF COUNTRY MOUNTAIN MUSIC
Henry Smith was born in Stafford County, Virginia. His father, another Henry Smith, and his mother Sarah Crosby, were both born there. His paternal grandfather, yet another Henry Smith, had come from Staffordshire, England, to Stafford County, Virginia, and settled. Again, by evidence of the fine tabletop tombstone at Clifton, the Henry of this paper was born February 5, 1741. He was the fifth child of thirteen, ten of whom lived to maturity. Of these, General Daniel Smith of Tennessee, not Henry, was the most famous. (1)
Virtually nothing is known of Henry Smith's early life. Indeed, for all his prominence on the Clinch frontier, which he largely helped to shape, little is known about Smith's later life. Henry's nephew, Colonel George Smith, wrote in 1844 that his father Daniel, "was early sent to Baltimore to acquire an education, but the most he learned he obtained by private application." Was Henry also, "early sent to Baltimore to acquire an education?"
There is no answer, but whether by a trip to Baltimore, or like Daniel, by private application or both, Henry Smith acquired an education remarkable for the Virginia frontier near the end of the eighteenth century. (2)
Henry Smith's later life is obscure enough, but his early life is surrounded by a lack of information that approaches mystery. Not a single letter written by this most literate man has survived. The first Survey Book of Russell County has two sentences written facing page one which describe how Smith oriented his surveyor's instrument on the rocks that top House and Barn Mountain. These two sentences which contain about 65 words, constitute, with a number of entries in the first Russell Survey Books, all the known concrete evidence of Smith's literacy.
We cannot be quite sure how, why, or when Henry Smith first visited the Clinch. There is evidence, acceptable, though not definitive, that this Henry Smith was one of the Long Hunters, along with such storied persons as Gasper Mansker, Obediah Terrill, Uriah Stone, James Dysart, Joseph Drake, and others. (3) If true, and the evidence if far from negligible, the puzzle of Smith's early life would be less baffling.
The trace of the Long Hunters led up the branches of the New River, across an easy divide, then down the Clinch into Powell Valley, through Cumberland Gap into Kentucky. This trail went down along what is today called Little River behind the House and Barn Mountain. This would explain reasonably why Henry Smith chose his original settlement tract of 1774. This tract was not located at Clifton, but about two miles downstream between the head of Mallory Hollow and Little River (then called Maiden Spring Fork of Clinch). This rocky tract, which Henry himself obviously selected, was surveyed on March 12, 1774, for 464 acres by Daniel Smith, then Deputy Surveyor of Fincastle County and agent for Dr. Thomas Walker's Loyal Land Company, in whose name the survey was made. The Clifton tract, two miles upstream, was not settled until after 1776 and before 1783, as the two surveys prove. Daniel Smith surveyed for himself a tract of 673 acres on March 14, 1774, and even more incredible place to live, on Indian Creek, just opposite the site of Clifton along the eastern point of House and Barn Mountain. Henry's settlement after 1776 at Clifton was undoubtably dictated by his need to be near his younger brother's home.
Interestingly enough, Henry Smith, in addition to the original settlement tract of 464 acres, had another site surveyed. We have no exact time, for the entry in Fincastle Plat Book A is not dated, but in the re-survey of June 3, 1783, the Commissioner's certificate lists the settlement date as 1774, which may be considered authentic. (6) It is on this latter site that the present beautiful home, Smithfield, was built by Henry's grandson, Dr. John Taylor Smith in 1850. The only present lineal descendant's bearing the name Smith live there. If Henry's choice of Clifton rather than the original settlement site, or the infinitely more preferable Smithfield site, it is only necessary to recall two cogent reasons for the selection of Clifton - and not Smithfield - was on the Hunter's Trace, main road of that distant time. Second, it was much closer to brother Daniel's cabin than the tract two miles downstream.
Daniel Smith married in 1773. Henry, also, or so it would seem, did likewise. He was then thirty-two years old and this was his first marriage. His bride was nearly 37, and the widow of Anthony Strother, a restless and active man. By family tradition, this widow, Mary James Strother, had been a friend in childhood of Mary Lewis, sister of our first President. The only concrete evidence that Mary James Strother's marriage to Henry Smith took place in 1773 is that their first child, Harry, was born June 7, 1774 in Fauquier County. Mary James was born December 28, 1736, thus being over four years older than her second husband, Henry Smith. It is interesting that both sets of children were composed of an older male and two younger female children. (6)
Although even less is known about Mary James than either of her publicly prominent husbands, there are a few clues from such documents as her own will and the inventory of Henry Smith, taken at his death in 1801. It must be especially noted that Mary James Strother Smith took up about one seventh of the space in her brief, but very meaningful will to insist there would be no appraisal of her effects - and there was none.
Mary James' first husband was a figure even more shadowy than Henry Smith, the second husband. Strother was well known in his day, without leaving much imprint on posterity. He was, at different times, a resident of Stafford, of King George, of Spotsylvania, of Fauquier, and of other counties in coastal Virginia. He was active as a warehouser for Virginia's colonial government. He appears to have been considerably older than Mary James, who may have been his second wife.
It seems fairly clear, at any rate, that Henry Smith married a widow at least well to do, if not actually rich. The birth of Harry smith in Fauquier and not Stafford County indicates the possibility that this was the location of Mary James Strother Smith's holdings left her by the first husband. After the birth of the second child, Sally Smith - named, of course, for her grandmother, Sarah Crosby Smith - in 1775, Henry seems to have persuaded his wife to consider moving to Southwest Virginia, location of his two considerable tracts of land on the Clinch. The area was rapidly being settled and promised to be an area of the future, or so Henry, relying on the information sent him by brother Daniel, told his wife. Having always lived in the relatively civilized atmosphere around Fredericksburg, it is easy to understand Mary James' reluctance to move her little children out to the wild west of the Clinch Frontier. Her son, James Strother, was by now grown, though not married, and talking of going into the Army, while the two Strother girls, now aged 16 and 18, were both married. Elizabeth to a man named Green, and Mary to a Ficklin. Thus, there was no longer an impelling cause to prevent the Smith family from removing to Clinch.
Apparently, the family left for Clinch in the early spring of 1776, taking with them their slaves, some horses, and driving before them the nucleus of a herd of cattle. Mary was then three months pregnant with her third Smith child, to be the last of her six children. The child was, if a girl, as it was, to be named Margaret (though always called Peggy) for her aunt, Margaret Smith Jefferies, whose marriage had taken place on October 24, 1754. (7)
It is a matter of documented record that Peggy was the only one of the three children of Henry and Mary Smith to be born in present Russell County, her birth coming on July 19, 1776. The proven fact that she was born at Clifton, where she also died on June 7, 1858, and where she is buried indicates that the Smith's had come to this area early in the spring of 1776. Had Mary James Smith's pregnancy been advanced, the family would not have dared make the long, hard journey to Clinch. As it was, they got there in time for Henry and his slaves to make a good crop for the coming summer. Henry's brother, Daniel, had been living on Indian Creek now for two full years and it is more than likely that they came to his house first. It is interesting that Daniel's first born, George Smith, was less than two months older than Peggy. George was born at the Indian Creek cabin on May 12, 1776. Daniel and his wife were to have but one more child, a daughter Polly (Mary), named for her aunt, Mary James Strother Smith, who helped five years earlier, to deliver little George and who helped with the birth of Polly on April 26, 1781. (8)
For the sake of clarity, it might be well to review the life of Henry Smith prior to his arrival on Clinch in early 1776. From the record, it can be confidently stated that Henry smith was born in Stafford County, Virginia, on February 5, 1741. Whether he had been sent, like Daniel, to Baltimore, for an education or whether, like Daniel also, got his education himself, he was also well educated. When a young man of about twenty-three. Henry appears to have joined a group of Long Hunters that gathered on the upper New River and made several trips along this fabled Hunter's Trace, north of the Clinch and through Powell Valley and Cumberland Gap into Kentucky. A few years later, probably in 1773, he married a widow four years older than himself. This widow, with three children all in their teens, was well off and in need of a husband. In the three successive years that followed the probable date of this second marriage. Mary James Strother Smith bore her second husband three children. In 1776, just a few months before the birth of the third and last child, the couple with their two young children, leaving the married Strother girls and James, the grown Strother boy, in Eastern Virginia, set out for the Clinch frontier to live on a tract of land Henry bought from the Loyal Land Company in 1774.
It seems that their home, which they named Clifton, and most appropriately so, was built in 1776. Reasons for the location of this impossible site have already been given above. The fact of Henry's arrival on Clinch with both his sister-in-law and his own wife pregnant, probably dictated his selection of the Clifton site for a home over the better tract he had originally chose two miles further down the river. It was only a short trip on horseback along the eastern base of House and Barn Mountain from Clifton to Daniel's cabin on Indian Creek. So, at Clifton Henry planted his orchard, the remains of which still stand. Here he built his large log house which he named Clifton. The house stood for 114 years until it burned in 1890. It is said by the family that the roof was covered with red cedar shingles fastened with nails wrought in Staunton, and that this roof held for one hundred years, being replaced in 1876. (9)
Henry Smith little more than arrived in Fincastle County on Clinch when the Governor of Virginia signed the bill that called for the elimination of Fincastle, splitting it into three counties, by a bill passed by the General Assembly on Monday the 7th day of October 1776. The law commences:
Whereas, from the great extent of the County of Fincastle, many inconveniences attend the more distant inhabitants thereof, on account of their remote situation from the courthouse of the said county, and many of the said inhabitants have petitioned their present General Assembly for division of the same: -
Be it therefore enacted by the General Assembly of the Commonwealth of Virginia and it is hereby enacted by the authority of the same, that from and after the last day of December next ensuing, the said County of Fincastle shall be divided into three counties. From that point the law set the bounds for each of the three counties, declared them to be called Kentucky (the present entire State of Kentucky), Montgomery, and Washington. The latter covered the present counties of Lee, Scott, Russell, Wise, Dickenson, Washington, and parts of Tazewell, Smyth, and Sullivan County, Tennessee (prior to 1779), an area of about five thousand square miles. Courts for Washington were to be held the last Tuesday of each month, the organizational court set for January 28, 1777. (10)
Along with this order, the Governor issued a list of the justices for the new county. As was the custom, the Governor's list of justices was in order of their rank in the hierarchy. Of these sixteen men chosen, Daniel Smith ranked fourth, inferior only to Arthur and William Campbell and Evan Shelby. Henry Smith's name did not appear, it must be pointed out here that Shelby and the brothers Smith, for all their combined abilities, had one serious common lack. They were not Presbyterians, but Anglicans, and this virtually eliminated them from the ranking and ruling western clique. That they received notice at all was due simply to their undeniable abilities. Henry did not become a member of the court till much later, as will be seen, but he eventually rose to the rank of full colonel in the militia when Russell County was organized in 1786. (11)
In addition to the "crime" of being Anglican, the brothers Smith were quite easy-going. Colonel Arthur Campbell, though somewhat merciless in his judgments, was perhaps the keenest contemporary observer of this area fellow men. Although Campbell was quite fond of Daniel, whom he knew much better than Henry Smith, he characterized Daniel in this manner to Governor Henry Lee of Virginia on June 25, 1793: The Secretary (of State) who now presides in the Territory (South of the River Ohio) is a good natured man, and the people will do as they please. There is every indication that both Daniel and Henry were this way. However, it must not be assumed that they were weak men, for that would be very wrong, but they were certainly too easy-going for their own good. Yet, both prospered and were well-off at death. (12)
The first mention of Henry Smith in official area records, the two Fincastle surveys aside, was on November 25, 1777, when he was ordered to serve on the grand jury. His name does not appear in the records again until the county had been in existence well over a year. Sometime in that period, Henry must have been appointed tax commissioner, for, on May 20, 1778, the court minutes note that "Major Daniel Smith was to be the Commissioner of the Tax in room of Henry Smith, who is absent and cannot serve." (13)
Absent where? There is no answer. However, the second absence of Henry Smith that year is explainable. Wherever he may have been earlier, Henry was back home by August 9, 1778, for he served that day as courier for his brother, Daniel, in carrying a letter to Colonel Arthur Campbell at Royal Oak (Marion). This letter dealt with a proposed expedition for the relief of the settlers in Kentucky. Rather reluctantly, Major Daniel Smith agreed to head the expedition for the relief of Boonesboro. Daniel's letter to Colonel Arthur Campbell begins: Although the Kentuckie trip is extremely hurtful to my private affairs, a sense of duty and no other consideration makes me acquiese in going there. Daniel also spoke of the need of supplies for the troops and the possibility of doing without a commissary or Quartermaster. The letter also contains: My brother Enoch is not in this country. I showed you the letter to my brother Henry who I expect will carry this to you and whose sentiments you will learn. Judging from the speed with which the expedition was organized and started for Kentucky the last of August. Many pension statements of men who went along testify to that and mention the cattle and packhorses taken. (14)
The months that follow Henry Smith's trip to Royal Oak to see Colonel Arthur Campbell would be blank were it not for the information found in the Journals of the Executive Council of Virginia which explains this absence. It is proven by this entry that Henry Smith served as Commissary or Quartermaster, for the 1778 Boonesboro expedition. On December 14,1778, the Council Journal records an appropriation of a thousand pounds to be used by Henry Smith to clear up charges and expenses incurred by the expedition while in Kentucky. The various pension statements listed above in footnote 14 all indicate that the troops returned back before Christmas 1778. Henry smith, however, remained longer in Kentucky to clear up the debts incurred by the three militia companies during the expedition. (15)
Strangely enough, the records of Washington County, voluminous as they are give no hint at all as to the events in Henry Smith's life for the next year. It can be safely assumed he returned from Kentucky by spring planting time in 1779, but there is no further mention of him in the records prior to the summer of 1780. On August 15, 1780, he was foreman of a jury in the suit, Commonwealth vs. William Stewart, which found the defendant innocent. The court, incidentally, was presided over by Henry's brother, Daniel, and the jury included such well known Clinch figures as William Gilmore (Gilmer), Sr., and Andrew Cowan. When the first court met after the fateful Battle of King's Mountain, the docket was so full that the court had three separate sessions, beginning on November 22 and continuing through the 24th in 1780. Again, Daniel Smith presided over these three courts. After many estate administrations were offered for approval, most of the estates of men killed at the Battle, the names of one man for Captain, three for Lieutenants, and six for Ensigns were offered. Henry Smith's name was not offered for captain, but one of the six Ensigns. It is worthy of note that his was the only Clinch name of the ten. Henry Smith was now forty years of age and he was now nominated for the lowest military commission. While the rank of Ensign is now thought of only as a Naval commission, it was an army rank also until 1879. (16)
Again, for exactly one year, we are once more without information about Henry Smith. Then, toward the last of August, his name comes into the records again. This is for something important. Without explaining the extremely complicated matter of land tenure in the late 18th century in western Virginia, it must be said that titles granted by and under the Loyal Company had become moot. However, Virginia offered to give certificates of settlement to any person who could prove actual settlement prior to 1781, and a 1774 survey by the Loyal Company was ample proof that settlement had indeed taken place prior to the first year 1778, and that was important to prove. If a settlement had been on or before the final day of 1777, the settler was entitled to 400 acres free and, if requested by a preemption warrant for one thousand acres, while if settlement had occurred on or before the first day of January of 1778, the settler got 400 acres and a preemption warrant for one thousand acres, while if settlement had occurred on or after the first day of January of 1778, the settler got 400 acres and a preemption warrant of only 400 additional acres. Since Henry Smith had two tracts of land surveyed for him by the Loyal Company in 1774, as noted above, he entered two claims of settlement.
Henry Smith's claim for two separate 1774 settlements were unimpeachable, so he was awarded two thousand acres in preemption warrants plus settlement tracts of 400 and 214 acres, or a total of 2,600 acres. The importance of early settlement must not be underestimated. Though the claimant had to pay for land taken up under preemption warrants, he paid only one pound (five dollars) per 200 acres taken up, or only fifty dollars for the entire 2,000 acres and nothing for the settlement claims. Had this same amount been bought under a treasury warrant, it would have cost four hundred pounds, or two thousand dollars. In short, land acquired under preemption warrants cost only one fiftieth of that of outright purchase of vacant land from the Commonwealth under the 1779 Virginia land act. Henry Smith appeared in Abingdon at the courthouse before the Land Commissioners on August 21, 1781, to prove his right to the Clinch River Clifton tract and then on the following day to establish his right to the Smithfield tract. He also asked for and got two preemption warrants of a thousand acres each, in addition to the six hundred odd free acres the two settlement rights got him. He used this to take up nearly all the acceptable land up and down the river from present Blackford to above Clifton. (17)
The year 1782 was probably the most eventful one in Henry Smith's life prior to the formation of Russell County. By now, he was firmly established as one of the most important men on Clinch. He had been in this area only six years, yet he had certainly prospered. The tithable list of Major Thomas Mastin of Baptist Valley, Daniel Smith's close friend, shows Henry Smith to have been one of the wealthiest persons in that precinct, along with Daniel Smith. Major Mastin's list contained 82 taxable males, each with the number of horses, cattle, and slaves owned. It is interesting that no one in the precinct besides the brothers Smith had slaves in 1782, save for Levisa, widow of Rees Bowan with two slaves. William Bowen with three, and the estate of James Fowler, mentioned above, which had a female slave. Daniel was undoubtably the wealthiest man in the 1782 precinct. He is shown with 12 slaves and Henry with 10. In addition, Henry, in the early summer of 1782, had fifteen horses and thirty-nine cattle. Henry and his wife had three small children, the oldest only eight, and none of the Strother children were then living in Russell County, so that the disposition of these horses is clear. No carriage would have been even dreamed of in that backwoods, as a trip to Clifton even today would prove. There were, then, perhaps five or six horses as personal mounts and that left more than ten for work horses to plow the thousands of acres Henry then owned. A herd of forty cattle was certainly large for that remote spot during the closing years of the Revolutionary War. It can be safely assumed that Henry Smith had come to the Clinch with either no cattle at all, or, at least, only a fraction of the present herd of forty. To have driven forty cattle the great distance from Fauquier County to the wilderness of Clifton in 1776 would have been appalling. So, the increase in the cattle herd to thirty nine by actual count in six years of residence on Clinch is both interesting and a tribute to Henry's industry and ability as a cattleman. Daniel Smith, in the same list, had 13 horses and 30 cattle. In the entire precinct of 82 persons taxed, only six others had as many as ten cattle listed. These were Thomas Mastin with 20, Simon Cockrell with 19, Levisa Bowen and her neighbor, David Ward, with 16 each, John Deskins, Sr., with 13, and Mrs. Comfort Brewster with 11. (19)
Nor was this successful farming all. Earlier, on March 22, 1782, Henry Smith, might have been said to have arrived both politically and militarily. On that day, he was recommended as a Captain of the Militia, along with other Clinch men, Andrew and William Cowan, and Alexander Ritchie. Also along with Alexander Outlaw and Andrew Cowan, Henry Smith's name was sent to the Governor of Virginia to be added to the Commission of Peace for Washington County, Virginia. (20) In addition, he was appointed commissioner of land tax for the frontier battalion and, on August 20, 1782, made oath to the court that he served in this capacity for sixteen days. (21)
The Governor signed the new commission of peace for Washington County on November 21, 1782. This document was received in Washington County in late February and, at the court held on March 18, 1783, by virtue of this, five new members were added to the court by taking their oaths of office that day. Of these five, three were Clinch men, Henry included. Meanwhile, he had become a Captain of a company of militia, and on August 23, 1782, he was ordered by the court to take the tithable (taxables) in his own and the company of Captain William Bowen who lived in the Cove between his brother Rees Bowen's widow and David Ward. At the court held for May 20, 1783, Smith was awarded pay for having furnished 40 diets (meals) for soldiers under the command of Captain Robert Trimble, and for 250 days of pay at Fort Blair (Point Pleasant). Both of these were for pay for services of James Fowler, whose administrator he had become, and he turned the money over to Fowler's widow, his neighbor. (22)
In his role as administrator of Fowler's estate, Smith successfully sued both Joseph Lock and William Garrison on November 19, 1783. Lock lived on the headwaters of both Laurel and Indian Creeks, both northward of the present town of Richlands. This was not the Indian Creek on which brother Daniel lived. William Garrison lived at the foot of the west end of Morris's Knob, near Maiden Spring in the Cove. (23) Earlier this year, on June 17th, Moses Higginbotham, whose land was almost adjacent to that of Garrison, and who was later connected with Garrison by marriage, was appointed a Constable in the company of Captain henry Smith. (24)
About this same time, Henry Smith was entertaining a tiny group of young men sent to him by the county. They were the Deputy County Surveyor and his two chain carriers. This young man was Walter Preston, younger brother of Robert Preston, Washington County's Surveyor. Over six years younger than is austere brother Robert. Walter Preston was made very welcome at Clifton during the weeks in May that he surveyed the lands of Henry Smith. In fact, he made the house his headquarters for about a month, fanning out from there to survey many tracts in the upper Clinch region.
Walter Preston was born on Christmas day of 1756. He had been appointed a deputy surveyor of Washington County on March 22, 1781, though then only twenty-four. (25) With his two chain carriers, young Preston arrived at Clifton on Monday afternoon, May 12, 1783. He had pushed his work to do so. Preston had begun this tour of surveying on Monday the fifth, completing two surveys that day, two more on Tuesday, four on Wednesday, and five on Thursday. Then rains set in, hard rains, and he had two idle days on Friday and Saturday. Because he had lost so much time, he made two small surveys on Sunday to complete his assignment on the upper Clinch regions of what is today Tazewell County, except for a single survey that he made on the morning of Monday, May 12, 1783. That survey had been for the heirs of James Fowler, deceased, whose co-administrator, as noted above, was Henry Smith. This land was located at the site of the present town of Richlands and termed even then, "the rich lands on the north fork of Clinch." From there he hurried down the well known Hunter's Trace to Clifton. (26)
The Smiths were as delighted to have young Preston, then unmarried, as he was to be there in a civilized home in a savage country, as the area then was. Wild though the setting of Clifton may yet be, let alone what it must have been two hundred years ago, the house was a civilized oasis in the wilderness. Mary James Strother Smith had lived all her life, before coming to the Clinch, in the area of Fredericksburg. Clifton was a very large home, even though the Smith's had only three small children. From an inventory made eighteen years after Preston's visit, we learn that the home had 13 beds, four coverlets, eight blankets, many quilts, dozens of sheets (a rare commodity on the frontier during the Revolution, seventeen slaves, and eleven horses. As already noted in the 1782 tithable list, taken less than year before young Preston's visit, Henry Smith had a herd of 39 cattle and 18 horses. There were also in the home two square walnut tables, a number of looking glasses (a frontier rarity), a drop leaf walnut table, many candlesticks, three fine tablecloths and five "coarse" tablecloths, one and one-half dozen silver spoons, nearly fifty pewter plates, and 750 sheets of writing paper, among other things. In fact, at Smith's death in 1801, his personal property was appraised at $11,000. (27)
When Preston arrived, he and Henry Smith went over the tracts to be surveyed. It was noted that there were two separate settlement tracts to be surveyed - one for the maximum allowed of 400 acres (the original settlement site below Clifton) and the other for 214 acres (the Smithfield tract). Almost two years prior, Henry Smith had received from the Commissioners his two preemption warrants for a thousand acres each, and he was ready to have a number of adjacent tracts up and down the river surveyed to fill out the allowed 2,600 acres, all on the Hunter's Trace except for the Smithfield tract and a few small tracts on Indian Creek. Henry Smith's brother, Daniel, had been a deputy surveyor of Fincastle County, and Henry himself was no mean hand at this. He had in his home instruments of the same type used in that day and exactly three years after Preston's visit, when Russell was struck off, he became surveyor for that entity and so remained until his death when he was succeeded by his only son. This boy, Harry, though only nine in 1783, was fascinated by both Walter Preston and his survey instruments.
On the next day, Tuesday, three surveys were made for Henry Smith. Appropriately enough, they began with the settlement tract site which had been originally surveyed by the Loyal Company's Daniel Smith for 464 acres. Under the 1779 law, this tract could not exceed 400 acres, but it was no problem to chop off sixty-four fringe acres from the tract. Then the next tract below of 410 acres was surveyed and then 140 acres that joined the lower end of the settlement tract and one side of the 410 acre tract. These tracts, charged to the preemption warrants, were about two or three miles downstream from Clifton. The men talked a lot as they worked and work went rather slowly. But, in the evening they rode back to Clifton tired and hungry. (28)
Preston had already told Smith that he would have to go the next morning to the foot of Paint Lick Mountain to survey a tract for John Bristow. This 160 acre tract was soon located and surveyed and the men rode swiftly back to Clifton, the best haven they had seen since they left home, and, in the case of the chain carriers, vastly superior to home. Smith met the men as they rode into Clifton and the group went down by the river and surveyed a tract of 430 acres, the second tract below the settlement tract and west of the earlier-surveyed 410 acre tract. This done, they rode back to Clifton. It had begun to rain. (29)
Since the next day was rainy, they stayed indoors. Henry undoubtedly regaled his guests by telling them of his Long Hunt experience and Mary Smith saw to it that the guests were well supplied with food and drink. None of the men were sorry for this most pleasant interlude. The horses, needless to say, were well cared for in the stables. On Friday, three more tracts were surveyed. These were scattered and not easy to reach. The first was across the river on the south slope of Kent's Ridge. It was surprising, it seemed to the surveyors, that land so far up the mountain would be so good. This tract was 130 acres. From here, they once more crossed the river and went up into House and Barn Mountain and surveyed a fine little tract as a "lick" located in a gap in the north side of that mountain. Then, after this tract of 145 acres, they went to the other side of House and Barn Mountain and surveyed a small tract of 60 acres on Indian Creek. This was located near old U. S. 19, now designated as Route 770. From here, they rode back up Indian Creek and visited the home of Daniel Smith, brother of Henry. Walter Preston was acquainted with Daniel, who had, as noted, been a surveyor of the area under the Fincastle County days. Daniel was soon to move to Sumner County, Tennessee, but he had another year on the Clinch. He and his wife, Sarah, made young Preston and his men welcome. From here, they rode along the eastern base of House and Barn Mountain to Clifton and a welcome supper. (30)
The next day was Saturday. After their long trip into this mountainous area, the men were tired and, fortunately, it rained. The surveyors also spent Sunday in Clifton. As it happened, Sunday was a beautiful day and Smith and Preston spent much of it talking about many things. When Monday morning came, Preston and his men left. Henry Smith still had about seven or eight hundred acres of his two thousand acres of preemption warrant, including, of course the Clifton tract itself. Smith wanted time to think over exactly where the lines were to run for this, the most important tract in Smith's point of view, to be carved out of the astonishing landscape. Preston had agreed to return the last days of the month. Both men also knew that the tract known today as Smithfield had to be surveyed, but it was twenty miles to the westward and Preston said he would catch it as he and his men started back home early in the coming month. On Monday morning, May 19th, Preston left. By noon he was bury surveying along the base of Paint Lick Mountain. (31)
True to his promise, Walter Preston returned to Clifton. Even more than before, the surveyors were happy to return to Mary Smith's home, such an amazing spot in this rocky wilderness. They arrived about noon on Tuesday, having first surveyed a small tract of 75 acres on both sides of Indian Creek. From that survey, they had gone up the creek past Daniel Smith's cabin and across the rough short cut to Clifton. Smith asked Preston to wait an extra day for the surveys. The weather promised to be better and he wanted to discuss details of the bounds of the Clifton tract with young Preston. (32)
After a day of relative inactivity, the men got on their horses on Friday morning, May 29, 1783, and began their surveys. First, they rode up the river to a small but beautiful piece of land a mile above Clifton. Only 40 acres, it was soon finished. Then came the Clifton survey, which proved to be, when bounded as Henry Smith wished it, 335 acres. They then finished with a tract of 175 acres which began at a corner of the Clifton survey and angled over at the foot of House and Barn Mountain. After this, Preston spent Saturday and Sunday at Clifton. (33)
On Monday, the surveyors rode to the upper reaches of Indian and Laurel Creeks, east of Richlands, and surveyed three small surveys. They came back to Clifton, then, for a final stay. Early next morning, they rode nearly twenty miles toward Abingdon. With them was little Harry Smith, probably unaware that he was to live out most of his adult life as chief surveyor of what was subsequently to be his own county. The boy watched the surveying with much interest and it may well have been this visit of Preston that gave the needed impetus to determining the boy's future. Preston and his men, after surveying the Smithfield tract, bade farewell to the Smith's, father and son, and rode over the mountain to Abingdon through what is today called Hayter's Gap. (34)
At this period, Henry Smith was sued by a neighbor. William Gilmore (Gilmer), Sr. The nature of this suit is not known. The Washington County court minutes after mid-1784 were burned during the Civil War, so that the suit must have come either late 1784 or 1785, for Russell was formed on May 21, 1786 and the suit is not listed in the county's first minute book. The Washington County fee book records that on August 6, 1786, the clerk for Washington recorded that Henry Smith, he then a citizen of Russell county, paid 40 pounds (about 75 cents) for a "copy of the suit of Gilmore." Obviously, the Gilmer had sued Henry Smith. (35)
By this time, the Revolutionary War was long since over. Indian incursions on the Clinch still came fairly often, but never as far south as Clifton. Henry Smith turned his mind on the agitation for the new county. This bore fruit, for, on the first day of the year 1786, the Governor signed the bill establishing a new county to be named Russell for the retired General whose home from 1769 to 1777 had been at Castlewood. The first court was held on May 21, 1786. At this court, Henry Smith was appointed Surveyor of the new county, as well as Colonel of Militia. Smith spent much of his time getting his surveyors office in order and beginning his work. His twelve-year-old son, Harry, was his constant companion on these surveying trips. (36)
Not all of Henry Smith's time was spent in the surveying office, though much of it was. He also found time to farm. At his death, in early 1801, the inventory of his estate included 19 axes, seven reap hooks, six mattocks, a set of Blacksmith tools, four new shovel plows and four old plows, three iron wedges, 19 hoes, and other evidence that his male slaves were not merely for show. The presence in the house at the time of Henry Smith's death of numerous pots, pans, gridirons, tea kettle, funnels, along with fifty pounds of indigo, one hundred pounds of wool for spinning, three spinning wheels, a coffee mill, four small and two large flax wheels, scissors, and so on, shows there was ample reason to think the female slaves did a lot of work under the watchful eyes of Mary Smith.
At Henry Smith's death, the inventory records they had a herd of 122 cattle, valued at about $1,800.00. He also had 71 sheep, a number of hogs (only their value, not their number is given) and 18 geese. So, it may be seen that as a farmer Henry Smith had done well in the almost twenty years since he had but 39 cattle in the 1782 tax list. (37)
The son, Harry, then almost 27, and already an assistant surveyor, was nominated on February 24, 1801 by the Russell Court to succeed his late father as County Surveyor. Exactly a month later, on March 24th, Harry Smith qualified in court as administrator of his father's estate. (38)
Henry Smith had come to the Clinch early in 1776 and had died there early in 1801. Unfortunately, a quarter of a century of outstanding service to his area went unnoticed and unrewarded by the very posterity he had so largely contributed. This monograph has covered the first ten years of that period of service. It is to be hoped that someone better qualified for the area will recount the Russell years between 1786 and 1801 of this quietly remarkable man.
NOTES TO HENRY SMITH OF CLIFTON, 1741-1801
In these notes, the following abbreviations, aside from those that are standard, are used: OB-Law Order Books; SB-Survey Books; and WB-Will Book.
(1) Clifton cemetery is maintained by the present owners, the Stuart family, lineal descendants of Henry Smith. The cemetery is located on Route 640 about two miles northwest of that route's terminal intersection with 733 near the Tazewell County line. Family data comes also from the papers of the late William G. Smith of Smithfield and from Draper Mss 32 S 120. (2) Draper Mss 32 S 120 (3) John Haywood, The Civil and Political History of the State of Tennessee, Knoxville, Heiskell & Brown, 1823, pp. 88-89; J. G. M. Ramsey, The Annals of Tennessee, reprint, Kingsport, 1926, p. 96. See also sworn statement of James Dysart in suit Drake vs Campbell Superior Chancery Court, Augusta Co., VA OS 214. NS 75. Bill filed June 8, 1807. (4) Plat Book A, Montgomery (Fincastle) Co., VA, pp 74-75. Also Washington Co., VA SB 1, 116-118. (5) Plat Book A, Montgomery (Fincastle) Co., VA, p. 234; Washington Co., VA SB 1, 119. (6) Dates of births of Harry Smith and his mother from Clifton cemetery. Number and sex of children from both marriages of Mary James from her will, dated January 14, 1819 and probated November 5, 1822, Russell Co., VA WB 4-A, 64-65. Only evidence other than family legend of the relationship with Betty Washington Lewis is in DB E, 317, Spotsylvania Co., VA, in which, dated November 3, 1760, Anthony Strother of King George Co. Gent., and Mary his wife, sold to William Lewis of Fredericksburg, lots 35 & 36, in that town. It is interesting that one of the witnesses to this deed was a William Smith. Whether or not this was the brother of Henry and Daniel Smith, the brother would then have been between 18, is not provable. (7) Some of this is pure conjecture, some pure fact. All comes from family records, from Mary Smith's will in WB 4-A, 64, Russell Co., VA and from various sworn statements in James Strother's Revolutionary pension file, National Archives PS W-620. Margaret Smith Jeffries' date of birth came well before 1740. Her marriage date is in the family records at Smithfield today. Reference to Anthony Strother are encountered frequently in the Journals of the Executive Council of Colonial VA, in appropriate volumes. See also Draper MSS 1 QQ 79, a letter of 1753. (8) Birth date of Peggy Smith engraved on her tombstone and supported by her sworn statement as to its date and place in the pension statement of her half brother, James Strother, noted just above. Birth of Daniel Smith's two children from Walter T. Durham. Daniel Smith, Frontier Statesman, Nashville, 1976, pp 45 and 80. (9) Details of the construction of Clifton come from family records now in possession of John Henry Anderson Smith of Rosedale, great-great-great-great-grandson of Henry. At this writing, Smith lives on the 1774 survey of Smithfield in Russell Co., VA. (10) William Walter Hening, The Statutes at Large, Richmond 1819, Chapter HLIV, Vol. IX. 257ff. (11) Journal of the Council of the State of VA. Henry R. McIllwaine, Ed. Richmond, 1931, Vol. 1, 297; Russell Co. OB 1, p. 2. (12) Calendar of Virginia State Papers, W. P. Palmer, et al, Ed. Richmond, 1875-1894, Vol. VI, 409. (13) L. P. Summers, Annals of Southwest Virginia, Kingsport, 1929, pp 974-992. (14) Letter, Daniel Smith to Arthur Campbell, August 9, 1778, Folder #1, Arthur Campbell papers, Filson Club. Louisville, KY. Pension statement that describe the Kentucky trip include; Cornelius Carmack, S-2420; Michael Fleenor, W-7288; Ezekial Hobbs, W-8940; Robert Kincaid, W-10177; John McCullough, S-7204; Elisha Oglesby, S-1866 & Joseph Starnes, S-7600. (15) For payment of funds for disbursement by Commissary Smith, see Journals of the Council of State of VA, III, 240. Pension statements of the seven men listed in footnote 14 give dates of commencement and return of the expedition. Some sources list three companies, three captains. See also letter Arthur Campbell to William Fleming, July 31, 1778. Draper MSS 4 C 78, in which Campbell requests one company from Montgomery and two from Washington. Evidentially this was followed, for one company was certainly commanded by Samuel Hays, a Capt. From Montgomery. The accounts, as always with statements made long after the action, differ widely. Of the seven, that of Elisha Oglesby is the most obviously erroneous. All mention Daniel Smith in command of the expedition but not one mentions the presence of Henry Smith as Commissary, but his having filled that position is proved by the action of the Executive Council just noted above. (16) Washington Co., VA OB 1, 92, 100. (17) Hening, op/cit., X. 3565. Commissioner's certificates are found in entries in Washington Co., VA Sbi, 116 & 119. For land taken up on Preemption Warrants, see Ibid. 116-119, 124, 292 & 293. (18) Summers, op. cit. 981, 997, 998, 1014 & 1089, as well as Washington Co., VA OB 1, 123, 194, 195. (19) Tithable list of Maj. Thomas Mastin, 1782, microfilm issued by VA State Archives. (20) Both entries on Washington Co., VA OB 1, 132. (21) Washington Co., VA OB 1, 143 (22) Ibid., 132, 152, 172, 194 (23) Washington Co., VA SB 1, 130-135 for location of home of the two men. Suit in Washington Co., OB 1, 228. (24) Washington Co., VA OB 1, 210 (25) Sumner op. Cit. 1075 (26) Washington Co., VA SB 1, p. 126, 128, 130, 122 & 136. These pages with repeats not shown, are given in chronological order in which Preston surveyed them. (27) Russell Co., VA WB 2, pp 15-24 (28) Washington Co., VA SB 1, 116, 117 (29) Ibid, 120 & 117 (30) Ibid, 116, 117 (31) Ibid, various entries, including 131, 132, 159, 160, etc. (32) ibid, 125 (33) ibid, 118 (34) ibid, 133, 135, 119 (35) Fee book, Washington Co., VA, 1783-1788, p. 45 (36) Russell Co., VA OB 1, p. 1, 2 & 7 (37) Russell Co., VA WB 2, 15-24 (38) Russell Co,. VA OB 3, 108, 113
Pages 1-15
He was a farmer, sawmill operator, trader, soldier, mail carrier, and postmaster.
The farm on Big Branch was willed to him by his father, James Godsey, who came to Scott County from Montgomery County, Virginia, to work in the timber and lumber business.
It was on this farm that he constructed a dam and mill race to run his sawmill. The mill race was dug around the side of the hill, a distance of 600 feet, where the water was collected in a small dam called a forebay, that had an opening that could be closed by a splash board when not in use. When the splash board was opened the water had a rapid drop of about 50 feet to a mill wheel that ran his sawmill. This wheel was probably an over-shot wheel.
The first saw that was used at the mill was called a splash saw. This saw cut on the downward stroke, but did not cut on the upward stroke. This saw was later replaced with a circular saw which was faster and more efficient.
Logs were hauled to the sawmill on wagons called log-wagons, which had smaller wheels and were built stronger than a regular wagon. These wagons were usually pulled by four horses or mules.
In the fall when his farming and sawmill work was done he would go to Kentucky and buy hogs and drive them to Mt. Airy, North Carolina. As he traveled along with his hogs, they fed on the mast acorns, beechnuts, and etc. Sometimes he would buy corn to feed them when mast was not available. This trip lasted about two months, returning home the first of December.
As the spring of 1861 approached, there was much talk of Virginia seceding from the Union, which it did on April 7, 1861. War was then imminent. He was torn between his loyalty to the Union and his loyalty to Virginia, his family and friends.
As he worked on his farm and at his sawmill in the spring of 1861, he was deep in thought and much in prayer as to what he should do. He could not turn against Virginia, his family and friends. He made his decision and enlisted in the Confederate Army May 20, 1861. He enlisted at Estillville (now Gate City) under Captain Henry C. Wood, in Co. D 37th Regt. VA Infantry, as a Private for a period of three years.
Private Godsey had fought in several battles and skirmishes before he was severely wounded in the thigh in the battle at McDowell, Highland County, Virginia, on May 8, 1862.
He was given a furlough and sent home to recuperate from his wounds. He did not return on the date stated on his furlough. His regiment Commander had his name published as a deserter. However, this was not the case. He is shown as present on the muster roll August 15, 1862. After his return he joined the cavalry. A law had been passed in December 1862 by the Confederate Congress allowing the soldiers to change their branch of service.
For the period from April 30, 1862 to November 20, 1872 he was paid $308.13 which included his clothing allowance.
He was captured at Spotsylvania Court House at the battle of the Bloody Angle, May 12, 1864. His name appears on a roll of prisoners of War at Bell Plain Landing, Virginia, and is shown as received at Fort Delaware, from Bell Plain, Virginia, May 21, 1864, where he remained a prisoner from this date until February 27, 1865 when he was paroled and forwarded to City Point, Virginia for exchange. His name then appears on a register at Chimborazo Hospital #2, Richmond, VA, as being admitted March 5, 1865 suffering from a severe case of diarrhea. He was furloughed for sixty days March 9, 1865. He came to Bristol on the train and was met there by his father who had ridden horseback from his home on Big Branch and led another horse for him to ride home.
While in prison he had received a very poor diet and was almost starved and very weak. The horseback ride from Bristol to his home on Big Branch was very painful. He had lost so much weight that riding had caused a number of saddle sores to appear on his body.
The war came to an end April 9, 1865 with the surrender of General Lee at Appomattox and he did not have to return to the army.
After his return home he was given the best of care and a good diet. He soon regained his strength and was able once again to resume his work on the farm and at his sawmill.
After the Civil War during the period of reconstruction, mail services were very poor in Scott County and people had to go for miles to get their mail. Mr. Godsey applied to the Post Office Department for a post office to be established in the Big Branch community. His application was approved and the Big Branch Post Office was established March 1, 1872. He was appointed Postmaster and his wife served as his assistant.
This post office was in continuous operation for seventeen years. The post office was moved to another location February 1, 1889 because of new and better roads and population change. The name was changed to Snowflake. Mr. Godsey served as Postmaster at Snowflake from November 1, 1889 to February 26, 1892. He not only served as Postmaster, he carried the mail from Big Branch to Estillville (now Gate City) and returned the same day, picking up and delivering mail at other post offices along the mail route. For this round trip he was paid 25 cents per day. He had ridden a distance of about fourteen miles. The next day he would leave the Big Branch Post Office and carry the mail to Collingwood in Russell County, a distance of about 24 miles round trip, picking up and delivering mail at other post offices along the route. For this trip he was paid 50 cents per day, or a total of $2.25 for his week's work.
He was a devout Methodist and was instrumental in founding and building Ewing Chapel Methodist Church. He sawed and furnished the lumber for the construction of the building, which was dedicated April 16, 1893. His name appears upon a roster of those present at the dedication.
Mr. Godsey, you were a farmer, sawmill operator, trader, postal worker because you knew by the sweat of your brow you would have to earn your daily bread; you were a soldier because you believed in states rights and the Southern way of life. You were a builder of a church because you loved your God and the Christian way of life. You were more, much more, you were a father who left a progeny that has made the world a better place to live.
All that was mortal of Drury S. Godsey reposes in a small cemetery in the old homeplace beside his wife Susanna Latture Godsey whom he married August 13, 1867.
His old home is gone, his mill and dam are gone. All that remains of Mr. Godsey's hand work is a trace of the old mill race, almost filled with eroded soil and overgrown with trees. Big Branch remains the same - flowing over the rocks and falls on its way to Big Moccasin Creek and the sea.
Pages 16 to 18.
In the 1700's, the southwest corner of Virginia beginning at the head streams of the Holston and Clinch Rivers was a hunter's paradise. The great virgin forest was a vast storehouse of essential resources for man's survival. The formation of this central Appalachian region is picturesque and different from any other place. The Clinch Mountain range divides the watersheds of the Holston and Clinch Rivers. Both valleys with rolling foothills and steep slopes are limestone areas, ideal for farming and grazing.
The northwestern bank of Clinch River separates the limestone region from the Cumberland Plateau - also called "Appalachia." This extreme southwest section is a complex jumbled maze of mountains, ridges, knobs, peaks, plateaus, and countless narrow valleys and deep gorges. Numerous streams do a great deal of meandering on their journey to the Mississippi.
The Breaks of the Cumberlands is the westernmost scenic attraction in the area. It is a deep gorge in Pine Mountain on the Virginia-Kentucky line. It is a miniature Grand Canyon.
The High Knob in present Wise County towers 4,162 feet above sea level. White Top Mountains, at the point where Virginia, Tennessee, and North Carolina unite at a common corner, rises about 6,000 feet above sea level. Coale, an early writer, said that to describe the magnificent view from the summit of White Top is beyond the powers of mortal description.
The Natural Bridge or Tunnel in present Scott County is an unusual land formation. It is 420 feet high, almost twice the height of the famous Rockbridge, the Tunnel is S-shaped and between 200 and 300 yards in length.
After the Atlantic seacoast colonies were established, hunters and explorers began venturing into remote Southwest Virginia. The entire area was covered by a virgin forest with a few scattered clearings. The cleared spots were clothed with blue grass or pea vines - good pasture for horses.
The temperate climate, plenty of rain and fertile soils were favorable for the dense forest growth. Many of the trees were almost one thousand years old, more than one hundred feet tall, and measured five, six, and sometimes seven feet in diameter. It was an incredible growth of trees with about one hundred species. Nearby Great Smoky Mountain National Park lists about 130 species, more than all Europe which lists eighty-five kinds.
Among the giants were several kinds of oaks but the white oak was the most useful. Curly maple, black walnut, and black cherry were valuable cabinet woods. There were many species of fruit-bearing, nut-bearing trees, vines, herbs, and wild flowers all spaced in an orderly manner. All these, countless springs and streams of sparkling water, and caves made an ideal habitat for the many species of wild animals which the first hunters and explorers discovered. They reported large herds of buffalo - sometimes one hundred. Bears, deer, elk, panthers, and numerous smaller game animals - turkeys, wild ducks, swans and smaller game foul were abundant. The streams teemed with fish including twenty pound perch and one hundred pound catfish.
A great variety of mineral deposits were dormant throughout the area. Either limestone or sandstone was easily available anywhere. Others were: clay for brickmaking, sand for glass, coal, saltpeter for ammunition, and barytes - the area's main source of salt was at Saltville in present Smyth County.
The hunters and explorers who brought guns and ammunition, axes, and hunting knives could survive in the forest, even in winter. With the guns they could defend themselves and keep fresh meat. They used the animal skins for clothing and bedding. They built shelters and chopped firewood with the axes. The meat diets were supplemented with fruits, nuts, berries, and green salads. Herbs for medical uses were plentiful.
A strange condition existed in that land of plenty and legend. There were no people. It must have been similar to the Garden of Eden after Adam and Eve were banished. According to an Indian legend, all the surrounding tribes had forbidden permanent human habitation in Southwest Virginia. However, they all used the legendary, Edenic garden as an inter-tribal game preserve and hunting ground. Historian William Pendleton said that every tribe that ever hunted in the area claimed part ownership.
The first white men who came into the uninhabited wilderness were hunters and explorers. The Long Hunters were predominantly Southwest Virginians. Most of the hunts originated on the Holston and Clinch Rivers. The Long Hunters were trail blazers for future settlers. They left identifying names to many places along their routes.
According to L. P. Summers, the first company of Long Hunters who hunted in the Southwest Corner was organized by Elisha Wallen from whom Wallens Creek, Wallens Station, and Wallens Ridge in Lee County got their names. Members of the party were: Jack Blevins, Wallen's father-in-law, William Blevins, his brother-in-law, Charles Cox, William Newman, William Pitman, Henry Scaggs, Uriah Stone, Michael Stoner, and William Carr. For eighteen months, they hunted in Clinch and Powell Valleys in Virginia and Carter County in Tennessee. They went as far west as Laurel Mountain in Kentucky.
About the same time, Daniel Boone and several hunters visited Holston Valley. The second night they camped at Wolf Hills - now Abingdon.
In the year 1766, a party of hunters reached the headwaters of Clinch River. Two members of that party decided to stop there. They built a cabin at Crab Orchard about three miles west of the present Tazewell Courthouse. In 1769, Carr moved to a location about two miles east of the courthouse. The Long Hunters were pioneer businessmen in the Southwest Corner. They were also pioneer exterminators of many graceful, useful animals. For ever pelt they carried to Eastern markets, the carcass of an animal was left for beasts and birds of prey. The Long Hunters carried on a flourishing trade until the French and Indian War.
Most explorers were land speculators. They were numerous and active in Southwest Virginia, western Tennessee and eastern Kentucky during and long after the Long Hunter's era. Their objectives was to locate choice lands and places for settlements. Their main source of food was game. Apparently they slaughtered generously.
On July 17, 1750 after Dr. Thomas Walker returned from an expedition of one hundred and twenty-eight days, he wrote in his journal, "We killed 13 buffaloes, 8 elks, 53 bears, 1 deer, 4 wild geese, about 150 wild turkeys and much wild game we might have killed three times as much if we had wanted to." The party consisted of six men.
The three most noted expeditions over the Southwest Corner were those led by Colonel James Patton, Dr. Thomas Walker, and Christopher Gist.
In 1735 or 1736, James Patton and John Buchanan came from Ireland to the Shenandoah Valley. A few years later, Patton secured a grant from the British Crown for 120,000 acres of land in western Virginia.
In the spring of 1748, he organized an exploring and surveying party and set out to locate and survey the land. Included in the group were Charles Campbell and Colonel John Buchanan (they were Colonel Patton's sons-in-law and were both surveyors), Dr. Thomas Walker, a medical student from William and Mary College, James Wood, and a number of hunters and chair bearers.
The party set out from Colonel Patton's home near Waynesboro. When they reached the Middle Fork of the Holston River, they surveyed a tract of 1,300 acres called "Davis Fancy" for James Davis who was probably a member of the party. While they were on the Holston they met a man named Sinclair, a woodsman and hunter. He joined the party as a guide.
From Holston Valley, Sinclair led the party to Cumberland Gap. They camped where Virginia, Tennessee, and Kentucky join. On the return, the guide brought the party across Walkers Mountain by way of Saltville. They surveyed a 330 acre tract for Charles Campbell, on the North Fork of Holston and Taylors Bottoms which was near Broadford. The Campbell survey contained 1,400 acres. All of Locust Cove was surveyed for Colonel Buchanan. The Cove was underlain with the finest deposits of gypsum on earth. Late in the fall, the group reached Burkes Garden in present Tazewell County, the last stop mentioned.
On the morning before they left camp, a chain bearer by the name of Burke planted some potato peelings.
The party returned the next summer and found a bed of potatoes growing. The area still bears the name "Burkes Garden." Tracts were surveyed for William Ingles and William Thompson before the party left.
After the Patton expedition returned to the East. Dr. Thomas Walker and about thirty-six other organized and incorporated the Loyal Land Company. They petitioned Governor Gooch for a grant of land in western Virginia. For personal reasons the Governor sent the petition to King George II. On July 12, 1749, the Loyal Land Company received the biggest grant ever made - 800,000 acres. At the same time the Ohio Company received a grant for 220,000 acres.
On March 6, 1750, Dr. Walker, agent for the Loyal Company with a party of five other woodsmen started on an exploring party. They set out from Dr. Walker's home in Albemarle County. Apparently the purpose of the trip was to find desirable places for settlements. According to Dr. Walker's journal no lands were surveyed.
They took eight horses, one for each man plus two to carry the baggage. Some of the horses were bitten by snakes. Dr. Walker wrote in his journal that he rubbed bear grease or fat bacon on the bites and drenched the horses with a brew of Rattlesnake root. The horses survived.
The party traveled by way of Holston River then to Cumberland Gap and on into eastern Kentucky. They gave names to places and streams along the route, one being Dismal Creek. The men carved their initials and dates on beech trees. They measured a sycamore which was thirty feet in circumference. When their shoes wore out they made Indian moccasins from elk skin. Dr. Walker said that he lost his awl and he used a fishhook instead. Some of the others used horseshoe nails in lieu of awls.
According to Dr. Walker's journal the party passed through present Wise, Dickenson, Buchanan, Tazewell and Washington counties in Virginia and Mercer and Summers in West Virginia. It is possible that Dr. Walker was looking for deposits of coal and other minerals. He stopped at Pocahontas. The trip lasted four months.
The Ohio Company employed Christopher Gist, a noted surveyor, to search out their 200,000 acre grant. The Ohio Company's lands were on the Ohio River and other branches of the Mississippi down as far as Louisville, Kentucky.
Gist's party left Old Town, Maryland in October, 1750. They spent many days on the lands south of the Ohio River in Kentucky. Part of the grant was claimed by France. L. P. Summers said that the Gist party returned through the Cumberland Mountains at Pound Gap in present Wise County. Historian Luther F. Addington says that they traveled through Buchanan county and by-passed the present town of Grundy to the north.
The Long Hunters and explorers blazed trails for settlers in the great wilderness. However, extensive settlements were delayed for a number of years and reasons.
The Long Hunters and explorers had very few problems with the various Indian tribes. But when settlers began clearing the land and building cabins their attitudes changed. They became extremely hostile and ordered the settlers to leave. The few settlers who were living on the frontier were in great danger during the French and Indian War and the Revolutionary War. Some of them were killed and captured by the Indians, others moved away. However, a number of families built forts for protection and held onto their lands.
For a few years after the Revolutionary War ended, settlers literally poured into the Southwest Corner. Some of them were veterans who had been paid for their services with tracts of undeveloped land. The area became a spawning ground and jumping off place for settlers who went on to Kentucky and other western territories.
The majority of the Southwest Virginia pioneers were ideal transplants for the remote, rugged land. Overall they were a mixture of middle class Europeans and Britishers. They were liberty loving, hard working, intelligent people. Some settlers were second generation Americans tho had fought in the war for independence. They were accustomed to frontier living.
Many of the English settlers were dissenters from the Established Church. They disliked royalty and the English kings. Some of them were followers of Oliver Cromwell.
Another flood of emigrants left their homes in the highlands of Scotland and the bogs of Ireland. They were mostly Scotch-Irish Presbyterians in belief. They first settled in Pennsylvania and later came via Harper Ferry to Southwest Virginia.
Other settlers came from Germany, France and Holland. Most of the land-owning pioneers were industrious and thrifty. The different nationalities combined their skills while utilizing the vast stores of dormant resources and commodities. They soon transformed the wilderness into a picturesque region of bountiful plantations and farms. Some of the less aspiring chose the role of tenant farmers and share croppers.
The first comers chose the valleys and foothills, the best farming and grazing land. However, many original highlanders were content with the hilly mineral lands which produced good crops for a few years.
The pioneers were also hunters and craftsmen. They knew the proper woods and materials to use in building homes and the best time to plant crops. They were blacksmiths, tanners, veterinarians, doctors, dentists, masons, carpenters, millers, coopers, shoemakers and undertakers. The women were equally as skilled in and around their homes as the men.
While clearing the land for farms the settlers used many forest trees for buildings, fuel and countless other items. They also burned many valuable logs because they had no means of transporting them to markets. The pioneers killed many animals for food, clothing, and bedding. Deerskin breeches, hunting shirts, coonskin caps, elkskin moccasins, and bearskin pallets were common on the frontier. Many animals were killed because they were considered dangerous and some of them destroyed valuable growing crops.
Isolation and Indian hostilities tended to develop a spirit of neighborliness among the early families. They worked together, shared each other sorrows, and intermarried. After a few years the different nationalities and cultures had produced a new and superior species of mankind - Southwest Virginians. Even today their speech is different to that of Virginians who live in other areas. Presently, Southwest Virginians are scattered throughout the world. However, ample seed stock has remained and many of those who leave come back home.
Progress in Southwest Virginia was steady but extremely slow, transportation being the major disadvantage. Before a system of passable wagon roads were opened most outgoing and incoming exports and supplies were carried on pack horses and men's backs. Hides and ginseng continued to be the main exports. The thrifty, industrious farmers transformed much of the wilderness into luxuriant, productive plantations and farms. In the bluegrass areas large numbers of cattle, horses, hogs, and sheep were produced. Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Lynchburg were the markets.
In 1851, Dr. George W. L. Bickley wrote that the area needed railroads to carry the resources and commodities to markets. Bickley said, "We should find a market for our coal which is exhaustless and of the finest quality."
In 1856, the Virginia and Tennessee Railway was completed from Lynchburg to Abingdon and Bristol, a distance of 204 miles. The railroad was a godsend to many families.
After the Civil War more railroads were added to the system. Southwest Virginia was no longer the most isolated spot west of the Blue Ridge. The area had access to outside markets. The railroad affected every community in the Southwest Corner.
Many who were farming the steep, less productive mineral lands changed to public jobs at coal mines and timbering. However, the women and children often operated the small farms while the head of the house worked for wages or salaries.
The plantation owners and graziers were also benefitted. There were no more wagons trips or cattle drives to Philadelphia, Baltimore, or Lynchburg. Towns grew up along the railroad lines and trains carried enormous amounts of timber, coal, cattle, and numerous other resources and commodities to markets. They brought back factory made merchandise which completely changed the lifestyle of the people in general. In point of fact, the railroads had the most singularly great impact on the development of Southwest Virginia.
Apparently, Dr. Bickley's coal forecast was correct.
Trains and trucks are still carrying countless tons of the Black Diamond to markets and today the source appears to be exhaustless. However, practically all the virgin trees are gone but many acres of the mineral lands are covered with a new forest growth which will eventually produce valuable timber. The new woodlands are being stocked with game animals such as bears, deer, raccoons, bobcats, and foxes both red and gray. Wild turkeys and pheasants which had become almost extinct are being brought into some areas. Lakes and rivers are constantly supplied with fish from Government hatcheries. The wild life is protected by restrictive laws.
In the beginning farming was a way of life. It is now becoming a capitalistic enterprise. Many choice plantations which have been kept in the original families since Colonel Patton's and Dr. Walker's surveys are being sold to outside financiers. Family-size farms are becoming scarce.
Modern industrialists and historians are pondering the possibilities for the future of the Southwest Corner. Smiley Ratliff, a financier, says he has hopes for the area. Ratliff says, "We must readjust ourselves and not be dominated by the coal industry, so, when it dies we don't. We must return to the farms."
BIBLIOGRAPHY: (1) Journal of Dr. Thomas Walker (2) Harman, Annals of Tazewell County, Virginia, Vol. 1 & 2, 1922 (3) Summers, History of Southwest Virginia and Washington County, 1903 (4) Coale, Wilburn Waters, 1878 (5) Pendleton, History of Tazewell County and Southwest Virginia, 1920 (6) Bickley, History of Tazewell County, 1852 (7) Neal, Indian Wars and Notes, 1974 (8) Addington, The Story of Wise County, 1956 (9) Kincaid, The Wilderness Road, 1973 (10) Historical Society, Historical Sketches of Southwest Virginia, 1970.
Pages 19 to 25
According to Genises, Chapter 4, Verse 22, Tubalcain was an instructor of every artificer in brass and iron. This is the first record we have of an iron worker.
Dr. William B. White could well be called the Tubalcain of Scott County. He built the first successful iron works in Scott County on Big Moccasin Creek. Dr. White had learned the iron making process at the Bushong Iron Works on Beaver Creek in Tennessee.
Dr. White was born April 15, 1791, in Franklin County, Virginia. He moved to Scott County in the spring of 1849, an don May 15th of the same year, he petitioned the Court of Scott County to erect iron works on the lands of Rhuama and Almora Bevins. The order of publication was published in the Southwest Virginian at Abingdon, Virginia.
The court granted permission to erect the dam across Big Moccasin Creek, March 14, 1850, provided Rhuama and Almira Bevins were paid the value of one acre of land.
At the location where the forge was built there is a natural dam of rocks. The dam was increased in height a few feet by using logs, drilling holes in them and into the rock and driving wooden or iron pins into the holes.
The forge had a water wheel which ran the bellows to supply the air blast for the intense heat required to smelt the iron ore. The bellows were large, and made from cowhides sewn together.
The large hammer was a trip hammer that weighed 75 to 100 pounds. It had a long handle called a helve and moved by power from the water wheel. The hammer was used to beat out the impurities and compact the fibrous mass of iron into a strong bar.
The iron ore which was smelted at White's Forge, was mined by digging holes in the earth to a depth of a few feet, and by picking it up from the surface in various parts of Moccasin Ridge. The iron ore was hauled to the forge with wagons drawn by oxen, horses or mules. These wagons were log wagons built low and strong, with a heavy bed to hold the iron ore.
White's Forge was in operation before stone coal came into use. Charcoal was used to smelt the iron.
Jeter Frasure and Nat Hicks were employed to furnish the charcoal. The charcoal pits were located east and west of the forge, on the bottom land of Big Moccasin Creek. These locations were called Coaland.
Charcoal for the forge as made from hardwood and prepared by billets of wood piled in a conical heap and covered with earth and sod to prevent the access of air; several holes being left at the bottom, and one at the top of the heap in order to produce a draft to commence the combustion. The wood was kindled from the bottom, after it had begun to burn freely the hole at the top was closed. After the ignition had been found to prevail the whole heap, the holes at the bottom were then closed. The combustion taking place with a smothered flame and limited access of air. The volatile portions of the wood consisting of hydrogen and oxygen were dissipated, while the carbon in the form of charcoal was left behind.
The charcoal that was burned at the two locations was hauled to the forge in sleds pulled by oxen.
With the use of charcoal and bellows the early smelting furnaces did not produce molten iron, but a spongy mass of metallic iron. The spongy mass of metal which sank to the bottom after the fire burned out was called a bloom, and the lined hole with its bellows was called a bloomery. The bloomery was lined with stone which had to be replaced often, because the intense heat caused the stone to crack and crumble.
The blooms were small and were lifted out of the bloomery with tongs. By repeated heating with charcoal in the forge, and hammering with the trip-hammer on an anvil, this impure and oddly shaped mass of metal was brought to a condition of high refinement and great strength.
After the impurities had been removed from the iron and the desired implement had been hammered into the shape, the metal was tempered by a process called quenching. This was done by plunging it into water. The worker judged this by the color of the metal when it was hot.
If a piece of iron was left in the bloomery with a charcoal fire for 10 to 12 hours, the solid iron would absorb enough carbon to increase its hardness and strength. It was then heated red hot and suddenly immersed in water.
The iron that was made at White's Forge was used by blacksmiths to make horseshoes, oxen shoes, nails, wagon tires, hoes, picks, shovels, knives, and many other items.
Gunsmiths used the best grade of iron to make rifle barrels and gun parts.
It is now known how long this forge was in operation. The closing date is not known. We can safely say that with the coming of the railroads, home manufacturing passed out of use, as the products could be bought cheaper than they could be made at home.
Pages 26 to 27
On October 23, 1884, George B. White made application to the Post Office Department for a post office to be established five miles east of Estillville (now Gate City) in Moccasin Valley.
In his application, Mr. White was asked to give the following information as to location and direction:
The proposed post office will be situated in the County of Scott, State of Virginia, on route No. 11334 (now Highway No. 71) being the route from Estillville to Nickelsville, on which the mail is to be carried two times per week. The contractor is R. D. Hill. The next contractor is Drury S. Godsey, who was also the postmaster at Big Branch, the nearest Post Office to the proposed one on the same route, a distance of four miles in a northeast direction. The name of the nearest post office on the same route on the other side is Estillville. Its distance is five miles in a southwest direction from the proposed post office. The name of the nearest post office not on the same route is Wayland, a distance of five miles in a northwest direction to the proposed post office.
The name of the most prominent river nearest the proposed post office is the Holston River. The proposed post office will be 9 miles from said river, on the north side of it. The nearest creek is Big Moccasin Creek. The proposed post office will be one mile from said creek, on the south side of it.
The name of the nearest railroad is the Virginia-Tennessee Railroad. The proposed post office will not be near the railroad.
Mr. White was asked by the Post Office Department to select a short name for the proposed post office which, when written will not resemble the name of any other post office in the United States. The name chosen was Whiteforge. The name was taken from White's Forge, the iron works on Big Moccasin Creek.
C. M. Carter, Postmaster at Estillville, certified on the 10th day of November 1884, that he had examined the foregoing statement, and that it is correct and true to the best of my knowledge and belief.
Whiteforge Post Office began operation on January 28, 1885.
George B. White was the first postmaster. He was appointed March 28, 1885.
Martin Godsey was the second postmaster. He was appointed March 12, 1895.
Mary L. White was the third and last postmaster. She was appointed May 23, 1905. Mrs. White served until January 15, 1907, when it was discontinued, and its mail sent to Snowflake.
The post office was located at the home of George B. White, now the home of Mr. and Mrs. John Meade. Mr. Meade is the grandson of George B. White, and the great-grandson of Dr. William B. White, the founder of the iron works at White's Forge.
Pages 27 to 28
When I conceived the idea of doing biographical sketches of Lee County's educators, I had no idea there were so many who devoted a major portion of their lives to the education of the area's past, present and future citizens.
There were no public schools in Virginia until the late 1860's, and by then, the entire state was so impoverished by the Civil War that those that were known as "free schools" were few and far between, and of short duration.
Fortunately, the area did have some private schools which only a minority of the young people could afford to attend.
The first known superintendent of Lee County schools was Mr. William Orr, who took office in 1869, and served until 1873. Others that followed are: J. Henderson Graham, 1881-1893; A. M. Goins to 1909; J. C. Boatright, 1909- 1917; W. Alfonso Wygal to 1925; Silas J. Shelburne who had the longest term from 1925 to 1960, a total of 35 years. Mr. John A. Richmond served 9 years, and was followed by Robert K. Strickland, who resigned in 1973, and was succeeded by Mr. Robert McCoy, the current superintendent.
Even though Lee County has long been known to outsiders as one of those areas with "notoriously" low salary scales for teachers, this has not prevented her producing some of the finest educators in the state and nation.
Most of the county's territory is agricultural, and many of its educators were either farmers, farmer's wives, sons or daughters. Even though the salaries seemed meager they subsidized the cash needed for taxes, educating their children, and a few minor luxuries. They grew most of their own food.
After the coal companies started their industry in the Black Mountain area, many sons and daughters of farmers and businessmen hesitated to enter the Coal Camp schools to teach, but were later lured to do so around the 1920's by salary supplements paid by coal companies.
Adjoining Wise County and Dickenson County, had become more industrialized and were offering higher salaries for teachers. So, Lee County lost many of its fine teachers, but her loss was their gain.
Today, I shall attempt to give brief sketches of just a few of the educators who gave most of their lives to the course of education, and were either born, or spent the major portion of their lives in Lee County. (I have omitted one of the greatest here, since his biography was published about 12 years ago - Mr. W. S. Cox).
William M. Davidson was superintendent of the Lee County Schools for sixteen years, when he traveled by horseback to schools all over Lee County. Much of the information was acquired from an article written by his daughter, Lillian. Parts are quoted here:
My father's ambition was to own a farm. When he was a small boy, and day laborers were receiving 50 cents a day, he would sit down and try to figure how long it would take to work out enough money to buy a farm. He soon learned that he could not live long enough to buy a farm, and must find a better way. So he decided to get an education.
His family lived 9 miles from King College. After completing public school, he decided to attend King College. As he was unable to pay board, he rented a room near the college. Every weekend he would walk the nine miles home, have his clothes laundered, and return with a basket of food to last all week. He told the owner of the building that he could not pay his room rent until he could teach school and earn the money. The man agreed. When he finally earned the money he wrote to the man inquiring how much he owed for rent. A letter came back saying: "You don't owe me a cent. Any boy that would go through with what you did to get an education don't owe me anything."
Afterward, Mr. Davidson invested his savings in a small place, and moved his widowed father and maiden sister into the house.
When he was 25, he met and married a music teacher in Blountville, Tennessee, where he was principal. They later moved to a farm in Turkey Cove in Lee County. While there, his father died near Blountville. He later decided the farm was too small. So, he sold it and bought a larger one near Jonesville, where he continued to teach until becoming Superintendent in 1893.
While still at Bountville, Mr. Davidson received a letter from Campbell Slemp of Turkey cove, who invited them to come there and take over the school and music. They stayed with the Slemps for sometime. All the Slemp children, including C. Bascom, attended school there.
The Davidson children: Wirt, Alva, William L. (Was the first director of the newly created office of Industrial Development of the United States Atomic Energy Commission. The writer hopes to compile a story on him in a future edition.), Lillian, and one that died were all born at Jonesville.
After their son, William L. Davidson, finished at William and Mary College, he taught at Gladeville (now Wise).
After Mr. Davidson retired from the superintendency, he returned to the Turkey Cove to teach, but it was too difficult for his wife and daughter to handle the farm. So he quit teaching and devoted his time to it.
During the Civil War, his one ambition was to grow old enough to join the Confederate Army, but he was 15 years old the day before General Lee surrendered.
The music teacher that Mr. Davidson married was Emma Kehr of Fredericksburg, Virginia. A photograph of this family appeared in a Lee County paper in February, 1973.
(Sources: Lillian Davidson Stepto and Hampton Osborne)
Jackson Bascom Wolfe was born in 1868, in the Yuma Community of Scott County, Virginia, a son of a circuit- riding Methodist preacher, John Melville Wolfe.
His early education was mostly in the public schools of Tennessee with his college attendance at Decatur Academy in Tennessee; also Cumberland College at Rose Hill, Virginia. The subjects on his certificate included: Greek, Latin, Botany, Physics, English, Mathematics, Philosophy, etc.
In 1890, he was teaching in Rocky Station (Lee County). There his salary came from tuition paid by patrons, either in cash or by having the teacher board with them for a certain period of time. His monthly salary was $20 for the term.
In 1893, Mr. Wolfe was married to Nettie Lee Orr. He and his bride took the L & N train to Pennington Gap, where he taught and boarded with her cousin, Nan Wynn Slemp during the school weeks, and returned to the Wallen's Ridge farm for weekends at the Yokum Community. Later, he taught a one-room school near his home. His daughter, Josephine, has a monthly report which showed his salary for December, 1895, at $30.
She can remember her father riding his bay mare to Deep Springs School where he gathered beechnuts for his children at home.
In 1915, his school register showed an enrollment of 12 students in the 9th and 10th grades at Dryden High School, when it was a four-room building erected in the early 1900's.
In all, J. B. Wolfe taught 42 years, much of the time at Dryden, but also at Pennington Gap and Rose Hill. His last two years were at East Stone Gap, in Wise County. With two small farms, and six children to provide with a college education, he was indeed a fine manager, as well as a splendid educator.
The Wolfe family has retained and cherished much of their father's memorabilia. Among these are: his monthly report for December, 1895; 2 copies of the Virginia School Journal of February, 1893, and March, 1892; his daily register of Dryden High School, 1914-1915; a Virginia Public School Directory, 1918; and a most interesting school register for Jefferson Institute begun August 28, 1891, with Mr. J. C. Noel as teacher. I wish that there were time to read the names of those students, which some would recognize.
William Alfonso Wygal was born October 22, 1890 in Lee County, Virginia. He was a son of John B. Wygal and Clamanda (Orr) Wygal.
Mr. Wygal graduated from Emory and Henry College in 1913. He began his professional career as a classroom teacher at Ewing, Virginia. Later, he served as principal of Flatwoods High School until he was elected as School Superintendent of Lee County in 1917.
On June 12, 1918, he was married to Ruth Wynn of Jonesville. He served as superintendent until 1921, at which time he moved to Florida where he was engaged in a business until 1928, when he returned to Lee County and accepted the position as principal of the Jonesville High School, where he remained until his death on September 26, 1937.
On April 12, 1971, Southwest Virginia lost one of its most dedicated men in the field of education.
Robert L. Rosenbaum was born in the lower side of Lee County, Virginia, in 1891. His parents were James Henry and Martha Jane (Speaks) Rosenbaum.
In early life he attended school at Speake's Chapel, and later in a new building on land deeded from his father's farm. He completed his High school work at Ewing, VA, and received a teacher's diploma from William and Mary College. However, his educational pursuits had just begun.
After teaching a term at his home school, he entered Roanoke College in 1915, where he received his A. B. degree in 1917. He received his M. A. degree from Peabody University, studied one summer at Columbia University in 1939, and two summer sessions at Richmond Professional Institute in preparation for assuming a visiting teacher's position in Dickenson County, Virginia.
Mr. Rosenbaum had a most interesting and varied professional record. In 1917 to 1919, he was at Belton High School in Fauquier County, Virginia, as principal; from 1919 to 1921, at Mica High School in Caroline County, Virginia. In 1922, he returned to his native county and became principal of the Stickleyville High School on Wallen's Creek.
In 1924, he transferred to the position of principal of the Pennington Gap High School, where he remained until 1928, when he became principal of Pearisburg High School in Giles County, Virginia. He remained there until 1940, and then served in the Bland High School System until 1943, when he joined the Dickenson County System as a high school teacher at Clintwood.
In 1946, he became visiting teacher for Dickenson County and remained in that position for nine years. Mr. Rosenbaum's sense of humor was refreshing. When he was a visiting school teacher, we had a big yellow and white cat that was adopted as our class mascot. He spent his school days with us, often cuddled up on a child's desk. When the school day was over he went home and slept in the basement.
This continued for 7 years.
One day Mr. Rosenbaum came and pretended to be upset when he discovered that our cat was absent. This had never happened before.
During the following week, the students happily informed him that "Kit" had returned to school, and should not be punished for his absence. We learned that a neighbor had borrowed him to live a week in his corn crib, since he was fond of catching mice. Mr. Rosenbaum assured them that the cat would not be counted as absent. The fourth graders were fond of the pet, and often described him as a fourth grade pupil that had "never learned to read."
After one term as high school teacher, Mr. Rosenbaum considered retirement, but finally accepted a position as instructor at Clinch Valley College, in Wise, Virginia. Here he spent his last term in educational work, due to some difficulty with his vision.
His other summer activities included: a French interpreter for the U. S. Government, 1917-1918, and compiled U. S. Census in 1920. He held a diploma in Hotel Training, and another in Bookkeeping, all of which shows that he was a thoroughly educated and versatile man.
Mr. Rosenbaum married Miss Hattie Suttle, a daughter of Silas and Elizabeth (Legg) Suttle, who owned a fine farm in the Flatwoods area of Lee County, near Jonesville. They have a daughter, Betty, who is now Mrs. John Lanningham. She, with her husband and family, live in a beautiful home on the old Suttle place. John and Betty have two sons: John, Jr. and J. Lee Lanningham.
When Mr. Rosenbaum came to Stickleyville in 1922, he was driving his own car. His was a marvelous sense of humor. He was an avid sports promoter, and very active in church and community affairs. He enjoyed photography, and fun. But his students almost invariably described him as a man of high standards, thorough instruction, and strict discipline.
After serving for four years as principal of Pennington Gap High School, he went to Giles County, Virginia and served as principal of the Pearisburg Combined School.
Mrs. C. A. McClaugherty, one of his elementary teachers, described him as "a delightfully knowledgeable boss," and "the beloved and respected principal of Pearisburg School for thirteen years."
In all, Mr. Rosenbaum spent 43 years in the field of education in the state of Virginia. During all those years he was absent from duty only one day, which was due to a case of bronchitis.
He served two years as president of the Virginia Visiting Teachers' Association. He was a member of the Baptist Church. While in Dickenson County, he was a member of the Kiwanis Club for 13 years.
Mr. & Mrs. Elmer Smith, with whom Mr. Rosenbaum lived while in Clintwood, described him as follows: "R. L. was a man who lived a life for others."
One of his favorite stories was related by Mr. & Mrs. Smith. It was about a family once visited during his teaching career. When he arrived at the home, the parents were absent; he asked one of the children where they were. He replied that his father was in jail, and his mother was in a mental hospital. He asked about other members of the family, and was told that one brother was at Harvard University. Then he asked what the boy was studying at Harvard, and he replied. "Nothin,. They're studying him."
Fred Orr Wygal, born in 1900, was a leader in the field of education in Virginia. He was a native of Dryden, in Lee County. His parents were John B. Wygal and Clamanda (Orr) Wygal. He received his A. B. degree from Emory and Henry College in 1926, and his M. A. degree from the University of Virginia in 1930. He was named outstanding alumnus of the year by Emory and Henry College in 1967, and was awarded an honorary Doctor of Humanities degree by that institution in 1974.
Mr. Wygal began his educational career as a classroom teacher in Lee County in the middle 1920's, and served as principal of three high schools in Washington and Grayson Counties between 1929 and 1939.
In 1939, he was named superintendent of Radford public schools, where he served until 1942. He was then appointed Director of the Division of Guidance and Adult Education for the Virginia Department of Education. In 1954, he became Director of the Division of Related Instructional Services; and in 1958, he was Director of the Division of Teacher Education.
During his years of service with the Department of Education he took a leave of absence to become acting Chief Executive at Longwood College during the absence of Francis Langford in 1962-63.
He retired from the State Department of Education in 1964, and became Dean of Students at Ferrum College, where he served until 1966, when he again acted as President of Longwood College until 1968, when he was appointed acting Executive Administrator of Virginia Commonwealth University, which was later merged with the Medical College of Virginia. He remained there until 1969.
In 1968, he had been Director of the State Board of Vocational Rehabilitation. In 1970, he returned to Ferrum College.
Mr. Wygal was a long time member of Reveille Methodist Church in Richmond, where he taught an adult class for 30 years, and held numerous offices in the local, district and Conference of the Church.
He was honored by two Virginia Colleges for his services, including the faculty center at Ferrum College, and the Music Building of Longwood.
He was married to Miss Billie Robinson and had one son, Fred O. Wygal, Jr.
He died May 6, 1980. Funeral services were conducted in his home church in Richmond. Burial was in Easthampton Memorial Park, also in Richmond.
The Fred Orr Wygal Papers form a special collection that are now in the Special Collection Department of the James Cabell Library of Virginia Commonwealth University.
Walter Eugene Campbell was born in Lee County, Virginia, about 1915, the son of Mr. and Mrs. R. W. Campbell. He attended the public schools of Lee County, and was a graduate of Maryville College in Tennessee. His Doctorate was from the University of Virginia.
During the 1930's, he taught in the Lee County schools. He married Miss Elizabeth Duff Anderson of Lee County, who was also a teacher, librarian, and author of juvenile books.
In 1943, Mr. Campbell went to Norfolk County as assistant principal. He served as principal of Broad Creek, Great Bridge and Norview Schools, before joining the Norfolk City Schools in 1955 as Director of Instruction.
When he left Norfolk in 1969 to serve as head of Henrico Schools outside Richmond, Campbell was Associate Superintendent and financial brain of the Norfolk Schools.
Prior to 1955, he had served as teacher and principal of various high schools in Chesapeake, Augusta, Bath, and Lee Counties, and in Martinsville, Virginia.
In 1975, he was virtually drafted for the position of Superintendent of Public Instruction, from which he resigned and retired in June, 1979. As he announced his plans to retire, Mr. Campbell wrote to Governor Dalton: "At that time I will have completed 41 years as a teacher, supervisor, and administrator in public education in the Commonwealth."
Among his many accomplishments were: Honorary Life Member of the American Association of School Administrators; the Phi Delta Kappa, Past Chairman of Virginia High School League; a Thirty Second Degree Mason; member of Richmond Rotary Club, and the River Road Methodist Church.
In 1972, he was chosen by the Association of School Administrators to visit schools and study educational systems in Germany, Austria, and Denmark; and in 1975, for similar trips to Russia and Switzerland. In 1977, he and six other educators were sent to Latin America. In 1978, he made a trip to Indonesia. In 1980 he received a Distinguished Service award from the American Association of School Administrators, being the third Virginian to receive this award.
Mr. Campbell died in 1980.
It gives me a special pleasure and pride to present this biographical sketch on Walter Eugene Campbell, not only because he was a native Lee Countian, but, also because I had the honor of teaching him to read and write during his first year of school. It is gratifying to know that I had a small part in the training of this great educator.
Pages 29 to 40
The life of Samuel Elbert Smith spanned most of the latter half of the 19th century and much of the first half of the 20th. During his long life he functioned in many different capacities: husband, father, farmer, carpenter, cabinetmaker, blacksmith, coffin maker, school teacher, scribe and postmaster. He was a man of strong convictions, but he was subject to the frailties that plague all men.
Samuel was born on 10 April 1858, the son of William Henderson Smith and Julia Ann McClellan Smith. He was born at the family home on Copper Ridge in Scott County, Virginia (1) Samuel was descended from Benjamin Smith who was, according to family tradition, the first Smith to come to that part of the country. (2)
The outbreak of the Civil War when he was only four years old and its subsequent cancerous spread over the once- peaceful South must have been a factor in shaping the character of the man. One must wonder if that bloody conflict, with its intense polarity of ethical beliefs, coming as it did during those formative years of his young life, could be the contributing factor in the strength of his later political convictions. All of his life he was known to be a strong Republican. (3) This was not a popular position in the Reconstruction South where Republicans were associated with the Union - the North. But Virginia was a border state, and there was a significant number of families who followed those political conscience demands. There were also many families which were divided over the question of secession and slavery, thus producing the often-dramatized split family.
Samuel was too young to participate in the war, even as a childish drummer boy, but the family was not untouched by the war around them. Their home and family were not directly involved, but the nearness of the battles and the ever-present fear and threat of battle was not a setting milieu for living. In September, 1864, the county court clerk, Sylvester Patton McConnell, was ordered to remove the court records and keep them hidden lest they be destroyed by the enemy. Only after the end of the war were they returned to the courthouse in Gate City. (4)
Farms in the community around them were sacked to provide food and supplies for the opposing armies. In one family, the Landon J. Elliotts, neighbors of the Smiths, two of the young sons were instructed by their father to remove the livestock from the barn, drive the animals over a hill behind the house and hide them in a hollow between covering ridges. The boys were successful in their efforts, and the animals were not seized by the soldiers. (5)
William Henderson Smith, Samuel's father, was born 3 May 1824. He married Julia Ann McClellan on 23 December 1857. William was twenty-three and Julia was eighteen. Julia was the daughter of Samuel McClellan and Rebecca Lane McClellan. William and Julia's first child was a daughter, Rebecca, who was born about 1849. She married Joe Southern and had three children.
The second child of William and Julia was Samuel's only brother, Logan, but he died as a child; and Samuel was brought up as the only brother in a family of girls.
The third child was Minerva L. who was born about 1854. She married Henderson McConnell and had five children.
Sarepta Jane was the fourth child. She was born 5 March 1856, married Alva Elliott on 4 March 1878, and eventually had twelve children. On the 1860 census of Scott County she is listed as Nancy S. J., so we may assume that Nancy was a part of her name although it does not appear as such on any other records found to date.
The fifth child is the subject of this report, Samuel Elbert. His marriage to Sarah McConnell and his six children will be discussed in more detail.
The sixth, and youngest, child of William and Julia was Victoria, who married William Strong and had ten children. (6)
This prolific family was typical of farm families who solved their labor problems in some small measure by giving birth to the workers they needed. Sometimes they were girls instead of the hoped-for sons, but the girls were expected to work just as long and just as hard as the boys. The scope of their responsibilities was somewhat different, but the intensity of the work was very similar.
Samuel grew into a man of average height and chunky build. He has a protruding chin and very dark hair. When he was an old man and his hair had become thin and gray, he recalled with pleasure that his hair had once been so black "that it looked blue." (7)
When he was twenty years of age he fell in love with and married a young lady who live din the community, seventeen-year-old Sarah Elizabeth McConnell. (8) She was a slender young woman with large serious eyes and a sweet, vulnerable looking face which matched an unwavering iron will. She was the youngest child of James Thomas McConnell and his second wife, Elizabeth Elliott McConnell. There were five children from Thomas' first marriage and seven from the second.
Sarah inherited the family home and about a hundred acres of farm and timber land from her family, and it was here that the young couple began their marriage. The house was originally a log structure with one large room downstairs and another of the same dimensions above it. There was a wide hall running from front to back with a broad staircase leading to the room above. Later Samuel added another room downstairs, smaller than the first, and one of matching size upstairs above it. There was a large stone chimney at each end of the house, and each of the rooms was heated by a fireplace. Originally, all cooking was done on these fireplaces also. They were equipped with swinging-arm- cranes from which large pots were suspended. Sarah also used pots called "bakers" in the fireplace. Later Samuel covered the original logs with weather boarding and added two porches (porticoes) to the front of the house, one upstairs and one downstairs. He also built a kitchen and dining room at the back of the house and connected them to the house with an open breezeway. The house was painted white, and its decorative trim around the porticoes and the turned-wood spindles which supported the porch rails, together with the cedar shake roof of the house, made it a very attractive home.
The larger of the downstairs rooms was Sarah and Samuel's bed and sitting room; the other, the "Blue Room," was used as a company bedroom and parlor. Both of the upstairs rooms were bedrooms. (9)
There was a small stream flowing through the side yard on the west side of the house. Samuel and Sarah constructed a spring house on its clear water where milk and other dairy products could be kept cold. It became one of the children's chores later to keep the spring house clean of leaves and mud. The stream also provided many hours of fun for the children as a playground. There was one place in the stream where white clay could be found. This clay, shaped lovingly and dried in the sun, was used in making many childish doll dishes.
Sarah maintained a small kitchen garden in the backyard while Samuel battled daily with the hilly land to try to carve a living from it. Much of the acreage was left in timberland, and Samuel also had an apple orchard on the land. There was a cellar, entered through the breezeway between the house and kitchen, for the storage of apples, corn and potatoes throughout the year. Outside the backyard were located the grainery and smokehouse. Further to the east was Samuel's blacksmith shop. (10)
Sarah and Samuel's first child, a daughter, was born 10 May 1879. She was named Julia Elizabeth for her two grandmothers. In 1881 there was another child, Arban Jeff; and in 1883 another son, Wiley L. was born. The happiness of the year 1883 was not to last however, and within six months both of the baby sons died, (11) and there would never be another son for Sarah and Samuel. There were, however, three more daughters: Bertha Alice born 18 June 1884; Alpha L. was born in 1890; and Ida Mae was born in 1894.
Samuel was a firm believer in education, but he was willing to send only one of his daughters, the oldest, to college. The other daughters exhibited a fine native intelligence, and they earnestly desired a further education; but Samuel was not to be shaken in his position. Julia must "share" her education with her sisters by teaching them what she had learned.
Julia later became a school teacher in the Scott County school system and married one of her students, Edwin W. Lane, on 9 August 1905. Bertha never received the education she wanted so badly, but through daily self education she became skilled in home nursing. She was quite familiar with herbs and wild plants. A cousin, Dr. Hiram McConnell, regularly called on her to accompany him to take care of the sick in the community. Bertha married William Leonard McConnell on 17 June 1903, and eventually gave birth to fifteen children. Thirteen of them lived to maturity.
Alpha married Henry M. McConnell on 9 December 1912. They settled in Florida. They had no children.
Ida Mae married John Lee Stallard on 7 May 1909. She died in childbirth in May, 1925. (12)
During his lifetime Samuel E. Smith showed himself to be a man of many talents and abilities. He was not a professional man, but he was an industrious man. He never made a fortune, but he provided amply for his family, and he taught them valuable lessons in thrift, economy and industriousness.
Samuel was a farmer. He raised vegetables and grain on the cultivated portion of the farm. He kept cows, pigs, chickens, and other farm animals, as well as a team of horses for pulling the farm equipment and the wagons and carriage for transportation. Wheat and corn were carried to the mill to be ground into flour and meal. Cane was grown and made into molasses. Sugar maples provided maple sugar. Molasses and maple sugar were called "long sweetening." Granulated sugar, "short sweetening," had to be bought, and it was a special treat. The farm provided for all the needs of the family except coffee (parched grain was sometimes boiled and drunk as a coffee substitute), salt, spices and sugar as mentioned above. "Store bought" clothes were rare, although sometimes materials were bought instead of being woven at home.
Samuel was also a carpenter and cabinetmaker of unquestioned skill. He maintained a wood-working shop (his "lumber shop") beside his blacksmith shop, just east of the house, facing the road. Erecting buildings and houses, making furniture and other items of wood, these were money making skills; and money was in a rather short supply in that area. Another of Samuel's skills which he practiced regularly, and for which he received no pay, was that of a maker of coffins for those who died in the community. This was his offering of love for his neighbors. The caskets were usually made of walnut, shaped in the old way; wide at the shoulder, narrow at the feet. The lid was hinged and the inside was lined with fabric, usually black muslin. (13) Neighbors were close in their sociality then, if not as close geographically as neighbors are today. When there was a bereavement in the community, the neighbors closed ranks around the sorrowing ones and took over. Women prepared food in vast amounts and carried it in to the family. Some of them washed the body, "laid it out," and prepared it for burial. Some of the men dug the grave. These people knew that grief, like work, is made lighter when shared by many.
Forty years before Samuel Smith was born, in the General Assembly of the State of Virginia passed an act providing for free education for indigent children, but it was not until 1870 that free public education as provided by law for all white children. At first it was not a popular move, for people tended to equate free education with the accepting of charity. Soon, however, it was an accepted and successful operation, and parents became concerned with securing the best possible teachers for their children.
Samuel had long been known for his beautiful handwriting, and he was often called upon to act as scribe for various persons when they needed something written out. Since he felt qualified, Samuel applied for and was granted a teacher's license in the Scott County schools.
The land for school buildings was donated by landowners in their communities. Generally, they did so to guarantee the proximity of the school to their own children. The donation of the scant quarter or half acre of land for the school was a very small sacrifice in many cases, because the site was unsuitable for growing crops. There was no need, in the minds of many parents, to provide a playground. Idle play was rather sternly looked upon. At many of the schools the only place the children could play was in the public road, and it was seldom kept in good repair.
The school houses were usually built of logs, chinked with mud and moss. The periodic repair and maintenance of the chinking was supposed to be the responsibility of the teacher and pupils.
There were three grades of certificates for teachers upon which their salaries were based. In the early days the third (or lowest) level was paid $15.00 per month; the second level teacher received $20.00 per month; a first level teacher earned $25.00 per month; and a teacher at the professional level could claim a grand salary of $30.00 per month. For a teacher to qualify for his full salary there must have been an average daily attendance of at least twenty students. For fewer than twenty (with a minimum average daily attendance of ten) the teacher received per-capita rate, and this could seriously affect the teacher's monthly salary. Beginning teachers were plagued by the fear of "falling below the average." To counteract low attendance, teachers engaged in many devices such as prizes for attendance and special activities.
The certification of teachers seemed to be rather loose and arbitrary affair. There was a little uniformity, and usually there was merely an oral examination which just might be administered while riding along on horseback in the company of the school superintendent. The would-be teachers, as a rule, had received their scholastic preparation (such as it was) in the local schools. Occasionally this was supplemented by a few months' work in an Academy or seminary. He was considered to be qualified if he demonstrated his ability to work the arithmetic problems of the grades he was to teach. This was an easily ascertainable check for his abilities, because failure to solve a problem was immediately evident to both pupils and parents. His deficiencies in other areas were less readily apparent. Most teachers were credited with greater knowledge and abilities than they actually possessed. The teachers were quite willing to foster this belief.
Parents preferred teachers who believed in corporal punishment and who had a reputation for being a stern teacher. For this reason, many people were opposed to women teachers, believing they were not strong enough physically to administer the rod as they felt it should be done.
The curriculum usually consisted of reading, spelling and arithmetic, with grammar and geography as electives. In Scott County, most of the text books were brought in wagons from Bristol, the nearest railway station at that time. Textbooks were not supplied by the school system then, and parents were expected to buy the books for their children. Because of their scarcity and high price, they were treated with utmost respect. The most commonly used textbooks were Webster's and Holmes' Spellers, McGuffey's Readers, Fowler's, Davie's and Ray's Arithmetic, Harvey's Grammers and Maury's Geographies.
Among the students, social standing and financial advantages were shown, not by the clothing they wore, but in the school lunch they brought from home. A lunch of cornbread bespoke poverty and was eaten in secret, away from the eyes of the other students. Wheat bread could be eaten openly - it stood for prosperity. (14)
Besides being a farmer, a carpenter, a cabinet and coffin maker, a scribe, a blacksmith, and a school teacher, Samuel Smith was also a postmaster. For many years he maintained a post office at Mack, VA in his home. The mail was delivered to Samuel's home in a padlocked pouch, and people would come to his house to pick up their mail or post their letters. To accommodate the post office, Samuel partitioned off a small area (about 4' x 6') in the large downstairs room. In theory, the people were supposed to come to the window and ask for their mail; in practice they were most likely to stop their horses in the road and yell, "Hey, Sam! Any main today?" Samuel was loathe to bring the mail out to callers and passing the time of day with them, but only when Sarah was not around. Sarah, with her ironclad sense of what was right and proper, insisted that there would be no running of mail out to the road. If a person wanted his mail, he was obliged to come in and call for it like a civilized human being. (15)
Sarah's strong convictions provided a basis of the family's spiritual philosophy. In religious practices the family was Baptist, but one may wonder if they were Baptist because of belief or because of tradition. In the western part of Virginia at that time there was little religious choice available: one could be a Baptist, or a Methodist, or nothing. In some places one might find a Presbyterian church, but even they were relatively rare. Anyone espousing such esoteric beliefs as Catholic Jews were as rare as travelers from another plant. But whatever their ethical and religious beliefs and profession, their membership in the Baptist church seemed to provide them with the spiritual guidance and association they needed. With their neighbors and friends, they met regularly and sang their songs, prayed their prayers, listened to sermons and praised the Lord. Samuel and the other men in the community constructed an outdoor stadium in the woods near Irvington school in preparation for the Baptist Association to meet. The amphitheater had long rows of seats made of rough planks to seat the crowd of people who would be coming from several counties to hear the preachers and the singing groups performing over a three-day period. The Association meeting began with preaching on Friday afternoon. After the preaching was over for the day, friends and family would visit until late in the night, then bed down wherever there was room to stretch out. Neighborhood houses were opened to seldom-seen friends, and it was not uncommon to find anywhere from five to eight children sleeping crosswise in one bed. Sarah spent days in advance of the Association meetings cooking and preparing for all the friends and loved ones they would be entertaining. Many who came did not have homes to stay in while they were there, so they slept in their wagons. On Saturday morning there was more preaching and singing; then there was a recess for lunch. Food was brought in baskets and spread on cloths on the ground. Saturday afternoon and Sunday morning again found the people in their meetings, and again on Sunday there was a "dinner on the ground." (16)
In the spring of 1916, Sarah became severely ill. In the manner of extended families at that time, their daughter, Bertha, and her family moved back into her childhood home to help take care of her parents. Bertha and Leon had seven children by that time, and they would have six more while they lived in Samuel's house.
Sarah was afflicted with a tumor, and as it increased in size it caused her periods of great pain. Samuel hired a buggy to take her to Gate City; there they boarded a train which carried them to Abingdon, VA, where Sarah could be treated in a hospital. Surgery relieved some of her pain, but revealed the sad fact that her condition could not be cured. Samuel brought her home on a cot in the baggage car of the train. She die don 23 July 1916 and was buried two days later, on her fifty-fifth birthday.
Samuel lived more than twenty-five years after Sarah's death, but he never remarried. For fourteen years, Bertha and her family lived with him and took care of him and the house. Leon farmed some with Samuel, but the two men didn't get along together very well. After a short time, Leon took a job that kept him away from home for a week or two at a time, coming home for a few days when he could.
Samuel filled his free hours by visiting with his many friends in their homes or his, at Sam Henry's store, or at Samuel's blacksmith shop. He liked to keep up-to-the-minute on all the latest news of the community and all its inhabitants. He would not have thought of himself as a gossip, but in his need to be the first to hear the news and pass it on he became irresponsible with the truth. It was said that most of his conversations began with the words, "They tell me..."
Samuel never owned a car, nor did he ever drive one. He traveled on foot, on horseback or in a horse-drawn wagon. He was unfamiliar with the specific functions of driving a car, but by observation he had determined that going and slowing were controlled by one or more foot pedals. Once while he was a passenger in a car driven by one of his grandsons, Frank Lane, Samuel decided that the young man was driving faster than safely and good sense decreed. He reached his own foot over and pushed down with all his might - on the accelerator. "Iffen you don't slow down," he adjured, "you're aimin' to kill us all!"
Frank was laconic. "Well, Grandpa, if you'd get your foot off the gas, I might get her stopped!"
It seemed that it was not just a different drummer that Samuel marched to; he marched to his own private drummer. Some of his actions were amusing, some were unexplainable, and some seemed childish and petty. But whatever his actions were, they always seemed to reflect his feelings honestly. He was never one to practice deception. He was, simply, just what he was.
Once he was plowing a field in which the corn was about a foot high. The day was quite warm, and Bertha was bringing him a drink of water. She saw the horse bend its head down as it pulled the plow along between the rows and bite off the tender young shoots of corn. Samuel was enraged. He dropped the lines, rushed up to the horse's head and bit it on the nose. "Dad blame you!" he cried, "you bite my corn, and I'll bite you.!"Perhaps Samuel was a man who bit his horse and spread gossip; maybe he "drove" a car recklessly and found fault with his son-in-law, but he loved his daughters without reservation. He also loved his grandchildren, and he spoiled them outrageously. Bertha's little boys were his perennial shadows. One of them, Miles McConnell, even begged to sleep with his grandpa.
After several years of two families living under one roof, and with many active children always underfoot, there arose some problems, some lack of harmony, between them. He cooked his own food in the fireplace in his bedroom and ate it alone. Shortly after that, in 1930, Leonard bought a house in Kingsport, TN, and moved his family out of the Smith house. Samuel was too advanced in age to be left entirely alone, so Julia and her family moved in with him at that time. (17)
In March, 1942, Samuel (a man advanced in age, but still active) was burning off one of his fields. Somehow the fire got out of control and was becoming a threat to a fine stand of timber. Samuel was alone. He fought the fire with more energy than his eighty-four year old body could endure. He fell to the ground, his heart failing.
Samuel Elbert Smith passed from this life on March 16, 1942, but he left behind him a large posterity and a wealth of family tradition.
The Smith house, once so proudly white and straight, still stands today and is inhabited. It is no longer white and straight however. The wood has weathered a silver gray; the porches sag, and rail supports are missing in places. The cedar shake roof has been replaced with galvanized metal. The wood paling fence is no longer there to define the yard. The breezeway has been enclosed, and electricity has come to the house. The springhouse has been taken over by the weeds and mud. Where once a gourd of icy cold, pure water could be had, and milk and cream were kept in cool freshness, now there is just a small stream of questionable purity flowing by the house.
As one stands before the house now, there is a sense, a special feeling; the past is still here. One could almost feel that, at any moment, a tall spare man with black hair and a drooping moustache would emerge from the house to offer the mail with a smile and a word of greeting. One can sense the presence of Sarah, slender and straight even in her last years, wearing her long skirt and white starched apron. They will be there forever.
Footnotes: (1) Commonwealth of Virginia, Vital Records of Scott County, Birth Records, Gate City, VA (2) Victoria Smith Strong, as reported by Julia Brooks, July, 1980 (3) Interview with Anne McConnell Gillenwater, granddaughter of Samuel Elbert Smith, Gate City, VA, March 29, 1982. (4) Robert M. Addington, History of Scott County, Virginia, (Kingsport, TN: By the author, 1932), p. 148 (5) Interview with Lee J. Gillenwater, Gate City, VA, Sept. 1980 (6) Commonwealth of Virginia, Vital Records of Scott Co., Marriage Records, Bk 1, p. 95; U. S. Bureau of the Census, Eighth Census of the United States: 1860. Population. (7) Anne McConnell Gillenwater (8) Commonwealth of Virginia, Vital Records of Scott County, Marriage Records, Bk 2, p. 58, 1. 19. (9) Norma McConnell Fogleman, Unpublished MS, Blountville, TN, 1980 (10) Interview with Ralph Emerson McConnell, grandson of Samuel Elbert Smith, Kingsport, TN, March 29, 1982 (11) Commonwealth of Virginia, Vital Records of Scott County, Birth Records, Gate City, VA (12) Anne McConnell Gillenwater (13) ibid (14) Addington, pp. 157-188 (15) Anne McConnell Gillenwater (16) Norma McConnell Fogleman (17) Anne McConnell Gillenwater.
Bibliography: Commonwealth of Virginia, Vital Records of Scott County; U. S. Bureau of the Census: Eighth Census of the United States, 1860. Population; U. S. Bureau of the Census. Tenth Census of the United States, 1880, Population; Addington, Robert Mr., History of Scott County, Virginia, Kingsport, TN: Privately printed, 1932; Fogleman, Norma McConnell. Unpublished MS. Blountville, TN, 1980; Gillenwater, Anne McConnell, Interview, Gate City, VA, March 29, 1982; Gillenwater, Lee I. Interview, Gate City, VA, Sept. 1980; McConnell, Ralph Emerson. Interview. Kingsport, TN. March 29, 1982.
Pages 41 to 53
I was about the age of eight or nine years old when the first string band I ever heard, or saw, was Fiddlin' Powers and Family. I vividly remember being in attendance with my mother, father, and perhaps a younger brother. I don't recall exactly where it was, but am reasonably sure that it was in a school, theater, or some other public gathering place, in, or near, Coeburn, VA. This was about 1920. To me this was a thrilling and memorable occasion. This even led me to be a great fan and lover of country music, and as the years have gone by, each time I see or hear country music, my mind goes back some sixty years to my hearing Fiddlin's Powers and Family.
It is imperative that the Powers Family string band be remembered, too often, interesting history and persons, places and events, have been left to mold and yellow, until the vivid picture of the past is lost forever. It is of importance to our heritage that we save the bits and pieces of our fading history, so that the threads of time gone by, may, in a small way, be pieced together and the memorable people and events not be forgotten.
Country music is, and has always been as much a part of our mountain culture and heritage as "cornbread and 'taters." Cut off from contact with the outside world the mountaineers of the last century and earlier, became a highly self-sufficient people, creating everything they needed. This, to be sure, included their entertainment. Singing, playing and dancing was an important part of that entertainment.
The country music field has always been noted for the relatively large part family groups have played in it. There are scores