82                      HISTORY OF CLAY COUNTY

cattle and sheep. There were no near-by markets, and he used to make
frequent trips down the rivers in flatboats, taking with him farm prod-
uce, including honey and furs. On his return trips Mr. Cooprider used
to stop over in the southern part of the state to hunt for flint, as all fire-
arms then made had flint locks. In 1832 he laid out a part of his farm
as the town of Middlebury. He had relatives in Harrison county, and
on returning from one of his visits to that place he brought with him many
fruit seeds, some of which he planted himself, giving the remainder to
the new settlers, and in the orchards thus established, known as seedling
orchards, some of the trees are still alive and bearing fruit. Improving a
good farm, Mr. Cooprider resided here, honored and respected, until his
death in 1877.
    Mr. Cooprider married; at the age of eighteen years, Elizabeth Flesh-
man, who was born August 14, 1793, and died in 1879. Their union was
blessed by the birth of twelve children, namely: Elias, Polly, Henry,
Washington, Anna, John, Susan, Elza, Elisha, Ann Eliza, Isabel and
Joseph. Anna had the distinction of being the first white child born in
Harrison township. Elisha, whose sketch may he found on another page
of this volume, is the only surviving son of this family.

    JACOB HUDSON, now eighty-five years of age, is the oldest settler
living in Washington township, Clay county, and has only been retired
from active work as a farmer for the past few years. He continued to
oversee his farm until 1907, when he withdrew entirely and rented it to
his sons. With the exception of failing eyesight, his faculties are still
quite alert, and he furnishes a fine example of the American agriculturist,
who, unaided, has acquired a competency by his own strength of mind and
body, has sturdily labored far beyond the allotted span, and in his vener-
able and mellow age is highly honored both for what he is and what he
has accomplished. He has been an elder of the Bellair Christian church
for about twenty-three years, and was a member long prior to that period.
His political activities as a voter and a thinker revert to the days of
James K. Polk, when as a stanch Democrat he cast his first vote for that
candidate. Through all the party changes, both Democratic and Repub-
lican, he has continued to support the general policies of the organization
to which he gave his allegiance as a young man of twenty-one.
    Mr. Hudson is a native of Randolph county, North Carolina, born on
the 12th of June, 1823, and is the second child in a family of four born
to James and Margaret (Luther) Hudson. The father was a native of
Virginia, and the latter of North Carolina, and both were of English
origin. They came to Clay county from North Carolina in 1827, remain-
ing near Bowling Green for about a year, when the father leased twenty
acres of bottom land, along the Eel river, of Michael Luther. He cleared
and farmed that tract for seven years, and then purchased forty acres of
unimproved timber land in Harrison township. There his wife died in the
late thirties, and he himself passed away in 1843.
    Jacob Hudson has therefore been a resident of Clay county for
eighty-one years. He received his entire education in the pioneer sub-
scription schools, the terms of which were three months in duration. His
mental training was conducted entirely in Washington township, whose
log school houses were equipped with windows of oiled paper; in fact,
Mr. Hudson never attended but one school with aristocratic glass win-
dows, and he assisted in the erection of that building of hewn logs. On