Boyd County KyArchives History - Books .....The Big Sandy Valley, Pages 5-28 1887
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Book Title: The Big Sandy Valley

THE BIG SANDY VALLEY.

FIRST SETTLEMENT ON SANDY.

   THE following certificate so kindly put into the author's hands by Mr.
Richard F. Vinson and Dr. Milton Burns, would at first thought seem to leave no
doubt that the neck of land lying between the Levisa Fork and Tug, in sight of
where Louisa now stands, was the first place where a permanent settlement in the
Sandy Valley was attempted to be made. The very same year, 1789, the Leslies
attempted to make a settlement at the mouth of Pond Creek, on the Tug River.
They, like Vancoover and others at the Forks, were driven back by the Indians,
who were at the time prowling around in the valley.

   The Leslies returned in 1791, but instead of stopping at Pond, they went on
to John's Creek, and formed what to this day is known as the Leslie Settlement.
The Leslies must have been the earliest permanent settlers in the Sandy Valley,
yet immediately after their coming, the Damrons, the Auxiers, the Browns, of
Johnson ; the Marcums, on Mill Creek; the Hammonds, the Weddingtons, the
Pinsons, Justices, Walkers, Morgans, Grahams, Williamsons, Marrs, Mayos,
Lackeys, Hagers, Laynes, Borders, Prestons, and others, followed closely on
their trail.

AFFIDAVIT OF JOHN HANKS.

    I WAS employed by Charles Vancoover in the month of February, 1789, along
with several other men, to go to the forks of Big Sandy River, for the purpose
of settling, clearing, and improving the Vancoover tract, situated on the point
formed by the junction of the Tug and Levisa Forks, and near where the town of
Louisa now stands. In March, 1789, shortly after Vancoover and his men had
settled on the said point, the Indians stole all their horses but one, which
they killed. We all, about ten in number, except three or four of Vancoover's
men, remained there during that year, and left the next March, except three or
four men left to hold possession. But they were driven off in April, 1790, by
the Indians. Vancoover went East in May, 1789, for a stock of goods, and
returned in the Fall of the same year. We had to go to the mouth of the Kanawha
River, a distance of eighty-seven miles for corn, and no one was settled near
us; probably the nearest was a fort about thirty or forty miles away, and this
was built may be early in 1790. The fort we built consisted of three cabins and
some pens made of logs, like corn-cribs, and reaching from one cabin to the other.

    We raised some vegetables and deadened several acres of ground, say about
eighteen, on the point, but the horses being stolen, we were unable to raise a
crop.

    [Signed,]         JOHN HANKS.

    This deposition was taken in 1838, the deponent being in the seventy-fifth
year of his age.

PIONEER CLOTHING.

    WHAT did they wear eighty years ago in the valley? The men wore buckskin
breeches and hunting-shirts of same  material, home-made linen or cotton shirts
made by their wives and daughters. They generally wore moccasins made of buffalo
hide. Their hats were either made by a local hatter out of the abundance of fur
at hand, or made at home out of fur skins.

   The ladies of the valley dressed well and comfortably in those good old days.
They spun and wove the cotton and flax into cloth for the family wear, out of
which they made handsome dresses and other female wear. They bleached the cloth
at the spring branch until it was spotless white. Another part they would color
with barks, and make the most handsome stripes. And when made up in the latest
style of that day, and worn by the belles, the beaux were as much struck with
the beautiful decoration of their sweethearts, as the beaux of to-day are when
their girls appear in silk. Sometimes they wore deer-skin slippers, which were
very nice. The old men who linger behind say that the women not only dressed
comfortably, but looked handsome in their homemade wear.

WHAT DID THE PEOPLE EAT?

   THIS question is sometimes asked at the present time. Their bill of fare was
a very good one. A more tempting one could hardly, to-day, be furnished by the
best livers on Sandy. Bear-meat boiled, or roasted before the fire, or on wooden
bars over a furnace made for the purpose. Venison broiled on the coals, or
boiled and eaten cold. Pheasants hung up before the fire and roasted to a fine
brown. Johnnycake made of corn-meal beaten in mortars or ground on hand-mills,
shortened with bear-fat, with some stewed dried pumpkin put in the dough. Wild
honey in the comb, or strained; maple molasses in abundance in its season, and
plenty of maple-sugar to sweeten their spice or other domestic tea.
Huckleberries, services, and other wild fruit as relishes. The epicure of to-day
would delight in such a meal.

   Hog-meat and beef soon followed along, with a little flour, and after 1820
coffee was used quite often. The old pioneer did not lack for plenty to eat, and
that of the best.

THE STORE DRESS.

   AN elderly lady living on Peter Creek, in Pike County, related to us an
incident in which her grandmother, when a young lady, was one of the actors. She
and a young lady friend were the first in the settlement, seventy-five years
ago, to own a store dress each, and a pair of store shoes. The goods was of the
brightest colors, and made in handsome style, ready for the approaching Sunday
religious service in the neighborhood.

   The young ladies all rigged out in their showy gowns, with shoes and
stockings in hand, when Sunday morning came, started on foot to meeting. On
their journey they came across a herd of cattle browsing on the pea-vine. One of
the beasts, catching a glimpse of the girls' new gowns, became frantic with
fright, which was communicated to the whole drove, and they scampered away with
the velocity of a train on a railroad. The cattle had never seen any calico before.

THRILLING ADVENTURE.

   ABOUT the time the Leslies came to the valley, say 1790, Charles and Emla
Millard, the former the grandfather and the latter the grand-uncle of A. J.
Millard, of Big Creek, came down on Tug from Clinch River to hunt bear and deer
for their pelts. They encountered a roving band of Indians, who showed fight.
Emla getting behind a tree, with the river between him and the redskins, placed
his hat on a bush so concealed by the undergrowth of pea-vine that the Indians
fired several shots into the hat, thinking it was on a man's head. Millard
halloed over to them to come out from behind the timber, as he had done. While
one of the savages was on his all-fours, peering out, Millard fired, striking
him on the hips, and with a yell he fell dead; the other Indians scampered off.
Millard went over and found a horn full of powder and pouch full of balls;
retracing his steps, he and his brother made off up the river. When they came to
John's Creek they found it overflowing its banks, but plunged in, and being
laden down with deer and bear skins, Charles was drowned. His body was never
found. A creek which empties into John's Creek at the place where Charles
Millard was drowned, is to this day called Miller's Creek, the d being left out.

BIG SANDY VALLEY.

   THIS valley is one hundred and fifty miles from north to south, and about
eighty miles wide, on an average, from east to west; in area as large as some of
the prosperous Northern States. It is drained by the Big Sandy River, or as is
now sometimes called the Chatterawha, with its Levisa and Tug Forks, and their
numerous tributaries. Both these rivers rise in south-west Virginia, twenty
miles or less apart, both flowing almost directly north on parallel lines of
from twenty-five to forty miles apart, until near their junction, twenty-five
miles from the Ohio, where they unite and flow on to the Ohio in one stream. The
Sandy and Tug Rivers are fed by numerous tributaries, some of which are in size
and volume of water carried off, sufficient to be known as rivers, rather than
creeks. Among the principal tributaries of the Sandy may be mentioned the
Blaine, which heads in Elliott and Morgan Counties, Kentucky, and flows in a
north-easterly direction, and enters the Sandy eighteen miles from its mouth.
Its length is seventy-five miles.

   Paint Creek heads in Morgan County, Kentucky, runs thirty miles east, and
empties its turbid waters into the Sandy at Paintsville, sixty miles from the
Ohio. Paint is a short but a broad, deep stream, affording water enough to float
out great rafts of logs from very near its head.

   John's Creek is a stream more than a hundred miles long; heads up near the
sources of the Big Sandy and Tug, between the two, and runs nearly equal
distance, parallel with them, and empties into the Sandy eight miles above the
mouth of Paint Creek.

   Beaver is a long straight stream, indeed quite a river, heading in Knott and
Letcher Counties, Kentucky, running north-east on a very straight line into the
Sandy, twenty miles above John's Creek. Shelby rises in Letcher and Pike, and is
a stream like all previously named, capable of floating large rafts. It flows
into the Sandy River above Pikeville.

    Rock Castle and Wolf Creeks empty their waters into the Tug River from the
western side, both rising in the same section, but flowing apart. The Rock
Castle joins the Tug eight miles above its mouth, while Wolf makes a short cut
and plunges into the same stream forty miles above. Pond is a short but powerful
water-way, heading in Pike County, and emptying into the Tug fifteen or so miles
above Wolf. Peter Creek, above on the same side, is quite a stream. From the
east side of Tug River is Pigeon, Sycamore, and others, to say nothing of the
almost countless smaller creeks and creeklets which help to swell the tide of
the Sandy and Tug Rivers from south-east and west. This system of water-ways
drains a part or all of the counties of Boyd, Lawrence, Elliott, Morgan,
Magoffin, Martin, Floyd, Johnson, Pike, Perry, and Knox, in Kentucky; and Wise,
Dickinson, Tazewell, and Russell, in Virginia; and McDowell, Wyoming, Logan, and
Wayne, in West Virginia. The bottom or level lands on the two large rivers widen
out in some places more than a half mile. The soil is a rich sandy loam, as
productive as are the Ohio bottom-lands. Most of the tributaries are equally
rich in soil, while, if possible, the cove lands, which are always abundant in a
hilly country, interspersed with so many streams like the Sandy Valley, are
still more productive.

   The bottom and cove lands produce heavy crops of grain, tobacco, and
meadow-grasses, while the hillside lands serve well in grass, grain, and fruit,
of nearly every species peculiar to a north-temperate latitude. In early day
this valley was the great center of the ginseng industry, and while not so
abundant as formerly, it is yet found in considerable quantities. Other medical
roots abound. Wild and domesticated bees find a congenial home here, making
honey and beeswax, articles amounting to great value. Fur skins add much to the
wealth of the people. Poplar, oak, cherry, walnut, sugar, beach, hickory,
linden, sycamore, and other timber, abound in every valley, cove, and
mountain-side.

NAVIGATION.

   THE Big Sandy River is navigable for steamboats to Pikeville, one hundred and
five miles, the Tug River for ninety miles, making nearly two hundred miles of
navigable waters; whilst, in addition to this, the tributaries named in this
chapter, and some short ones not mentioned, are navigable for rafts of logs and
other timber and lumber for at least nine hundred miles more, making a total of
more than a thousand miles of navigation, centering at the mouth of the Sandy,
or Catlettsburg. This valley has a peculiar topographical formation. Could one
stand on some commanding height and look down upon the valley, it would appear
in shape like a great oval basin, the southern end resting at the base of the
Cumberland Mountains, the northern dipping into the Ohio River at Catlettsburg,
while on the east the mountains of Virginia and West Virginia raise their tall
peaks as a wall of adamant, while the hills of east Kentucky, covered in living
green, form its western boundary, thus compelling an outlet, and an only outlet,
at the mouth of the Sandy River, and head of the valley.

   On the main streams and tributaries of the Sandy Valley, especially in the
upper part ot it, quite a considerable population had gone in from North
Carolina, Virginia, and Maryland, long, before Shortridge, David White, or the
Hamptons had settled at or near the Mouth. They had brought their domestic stock
with them, and some also their negro slaves, and commenced opening up the county
to civilization before scarcely any thing had been done lower down the valley.
The Auxiers, Meads, Staffbrds, Borders, Williamsons, Strattons, Leslies,
Ratcliffs, Lackeys, Osburns, Prestons, Cecils, Porters, Hatchers, Laynes,
Weddingtons, Friends, Hatfields, Marcums, Runyons, Justices, Prestons, Porters,
Brewers, Fulkersons, McDowells, Clarks, Goffs, Garrards, Browns, Dixons,
Maguires, Grahams, Morgans, Robinsons, Belchers, Bevins, Walkers, Mayos, Hagers,
Millards, Stumps, and others, were, some of them, much earlier than David White,
at the Mouth in 1798.

   With such a vast country, and with a growing population with productions to
sell and wants to supply, it is reasonable to suppose that the people of the
valley in that early day were put to great inconveniences in exchanging their
products for the necessaries and comforts of life. They of course had to go to
the Mouth to make the exchange. But even there they found no store at which to
trade, but with their crude push-boat or canoe laden with the fruits of their
toil, had to continue on three miles further to Burlington, or down to
Limestone; or they could sometimes get an entire outfit of Joseph Ewing, who
commenced store-keeping in 1815 or 1816, one-fourth of a mile above the Mouth of
Sandy, in Virginia. These drawbacks existed to annoy and embarrass the old-time
settlers of the valley, until Williams and Catlett opened out a large store just
in front of where G. W. Andrews & Sons' large brick now stands. From this time
onward, embryo Catlettsburg increased in trade and * commercial importance,
until it is now, 1886, reckoned in commercial circles as the most thriving
emporium of East Kentucky.

   From 1815 to 1834, the greatest competitor, with merchants at Burlington and
Limestone, and at or near the Mouth of Sandy, was Frederick Moore, who stopped
much of the up Sandy trade at the Forks by buying produce, and furnishing
supplies from his large store.

   Now, in 1886, Catlettsburg has a population of three thousand souls, with
large wholesale stores and growing industries, while Burlington contains a
population of less than two hundred, living principally off the product of their
gardens and fruit-trees. Frederick Moore got quite wealthy, but much of it was
made by dealing in Catlettsburg real estate.

   In 1830 the vast forests of timber in the valley had no real value attached
to it. This year, 1887, more than a million dollars' worth has been sold to
dealers at Catlettsburg, or passed on to cities below. In 1830 the existence of
stone-coal was almost unknown. Now long trains of cars pass out on the
Chatterawha road daily, laden with the best of coal from the Peach Orchard
mines, fifty miles up the valley.

    Salt springs abound in every county in the valley, and salt has been made
from the water of these springs from the earliest settlement of the country
until the present time.

COAL-OIL.

   PETROLEUM has been known to exist in the valley for fifty years. Since 1865
many wells have been bored to bring up from the caverns below the oleaginous
fluid. In many places oil of the best quality has been "struck," but so far not
in paying quantities. Scientists say, however, that when the proper level is
struck, oil will be found in vast quantities. In boring for oil at Warfield, in
Martin County, some fifty-seven miles from Catlettsburg, on the Tug River, a
trunk of gas shot up with the sound of thunder, and throwing out a light in all
directions for many miles around, which at night enables people to read without
the aid of any other light.

   The gas here, if utilized, would run all the machinery of the manufactories
from Catlettsburg to Louisville, including Cincinnati. Salt in great abundance
was made at Warfield previous to the war by Governor Floyd, of Virginia, and
since then by Colonel Barrett, the present proprietor there. The gas would
furnish fuel so cheap that salt could be made here as cheaply as at any point in
the Ohio Valley.

POTTER'S CLAY.

   POTTER'S CLAY of the finest quality is found in several places in the valley,
especially in Boyd County. In 1847 an English company bought several thousand
acre's of land on the bank of the Sandy, two miles above the mouth, for the
purpose of-erecting potteries to turn out the finer grades of cupboard ware.
Some of the clay found here was sent to England and made into cups and saucers,
and several sets of them, sent to the vicinity of Catlettsburg soon after, in
quality compared favorably with the best of China ware. Those named, with other
valuable minerals found in the valley, added to those already noted, together
with the vast timber supply, to say nothing of the fine lands and genial
climate, with few changes, are destined to make the Big Sandy Valley one of the
most prosperous countries in the Central West.

PIONEER PREACHERS.

   OF the early preachers of the Sandy Valley, Rev. Marcus Lindsay made a more
lasting impression than any other who went before or followed after him. He was
a Methodist divine of great talent and culture. For four years he, as presiding
elder, went up and down the valley proclaiming the Gospel, with an eloquence of
irresistible power. Many gray-haired men now living wear his honored name. Mr.
Lindsay traveled the Sandy district about the time of the War of 1812. After Mr.
Lindsay, Rev. William B. Landrum was the most noted. He commenced his
ministerial career on Sandy much later; not, indeed, until 1834. He was no great
preacher, but a very useful, popular one. He married more people than any man of
his time in the Sandy Valley. Bishop Kavanaugh preached much in his younger days
in the lower part of the valley, and the great Bascom has held spell-bound Sandy
audiences.

   Of lay, or local preachers—

   Rev. B. D. Callihan, now an octogenarian, of Ashland, Ky., has been longer in
the service than any other, being sixty years an active preacher of the Word.

   Rev. James Pelphrey, of Johnson County, and Rev. Wallace Bailey, of Magoffin
County, Baptist preachers, have each been preaching near sixty years. The latter
died in 1885.

   Revs. John Borders, Benjamin P. Porter, Andrew Johnson, George W. Price, and
Goodwin Lycans, of the same Church, served long and faithfully in the ministry;
but those of them now living are too far advanced in years to be very active in
the ministry.

   But we must not fail to give a brief notice of two of the most prominent and
useful men of that early age—the brothers Spurlock, Burwell and Stephen. While
not living immediately in the valley, yet they were only a short distance away,
on the Twelve Pole, and they made frequent visits up and down the valley,
preaching as they went. They were men highly gifted, of great power in the
pulpit, and were loved by all. Burwell Spurlock was one of the greatest
reasoners of his time, and was authority upon Bible exegesis Stephen, while not
so clear as a reasoner, was, perhaps, more powerful in his appeals to the
people. They were true yoke-fellows in the Gospel, and were enshrined in the
hearts of the people; they were connected with the Methodist Church.

   A man of wonderful power in the pulpit was Rev. Philip Strother, who preached
in the valley for many years. He had a most captivating voice, was a man of true
eloquence, and had superior descriptive powers. He was greatly loved by the
people, and his name is worthily perpetuated in his gifted son, Hon. Joseph
Strother, at this time judge of the county court of Carter County. He was an
old-time Methodist, and did much to make that Church the power for good it has
been and is in all that section.

   A man of the most marked peculiarities in the ministry was Rev. Henry Dixon,
of the Baptist Church. He was a fine fiddler, and in his old days always took
his fiddle with him to Church, carrying his Bible under one arm and his fiddle
under the other. He would introduce the service by playing several tunes, and
then close in the same way. The novelty of such service always attracted the
people, and the old man always gave them wholesome advice.

TEACHERS OF EAKLY DAYS.

   JOSEPH WEST taught school from Prestonburg down to the mouth of Tug. He has
been a teacher for fifty-five years, and now, 1887, is still handling the rod.
He lives in Martin County, and is greatly respected.

   Lewis Mayo, Esq., was a teacher of great learning and ability. He commenced
teaching in 1837, and kept schools of high grade for twenty-five years. He was a
noble Christian gentleman. He died near the close of the Civil War.

   James McSorley taught county schools for forty years in the Lower Sandy Valley.

   M. T. Burriss, now of Rockville, is one of the old-time teachers of the
valley. He was raised on John's Creek, in the Leslie settlement.

   Prof. Wm. N. Randolph, of Paintsville, reaches back to the days of bear and
wolves, when he first took up the ferule to teach young ideas to shoot. He is
still at it.

   William Murphy, of near Catlettsburg, taught county schools twenty-five
years. He died in 1877.

   Charles Grim, of Johnson County, was an old-time teacher for many years, and
being a very small man, always had to surrender to the boys on Christmas,
according to the custom of those pioneer days. The rule then was, "Treat or be
ducked," the treat consisting of not less than one bushel of apples.

SALT SPRINGS AND WELLS.

   THAT salt water abounds in every section of the Sandy Valley is a fact well
known from the earliest times until now. Henry Clay, the great orator, in
partnership with John Breckinridge, the grandfather of General John C.
Breckinridge, owned a large boundary of land on Middle Creek, Floyd County,
Kentucky, ten miles from Prestonburg, where the earliest salt-works in the
valley existed. Salt was made here in 1795, and almost continuously until some
time after the great war closed. The original owners disposed of their title to
the land for a mere trifle, and the Harrises, the Hamiltons, and others, worked
the wells, sometimes on a small and sometimes on a large scale. During the war,
the salt made at the Middle Creek wells sold on the ground for two and three
dollars a bushel. The wells are now in repose, awaiting enterprise to work them
again.

   At Warfield, on Tug River, some sixty miles above Catlettsburg, great
quantities of salt have been made, both before and since the termination of the
war. The works were first started by Governor John B. Floyd & Brothers, of
Tazewell County, Virginia. They built up quite a little town there, and made
great calculations to enlarge the works; but the war coming on, Governor Floyd,
the prime mover in the industry, went away, leaving in charge agents to look
after the welfare of the property until his return. But going into the Southern
army as a general, he went down amid the clash of arms, and never returned to
Warfield. Salt could be made there now at a small cost; for a company, on boring
for oil, at about a thousand feet, struck an inexhaustible supply of gas, which
is still burning, although several years have passed since it was developed. It
lights the country for miles around with a more dazzling light than could be
done with millions of jets of artificial gas. We say that it is inexhaustible,
because General George Washington, when making his wonderful survey up the Tug
River, says, in his Field Notes, when at the point opposite where Warfield now
stands, that he found a burning spring bubbling up out of the water. This was in
1766. Salt can be made from the salt water in every county in the valley, which
has been done in seasons of extreme low water in the river, preventing merchants
from keeping a full supply on hand.

   Near the mouth of Blaine, on the Virginia side of the river, salt in
considerable quantities was made as far back as 1813. Judge Robert B. McCall's
father was engaged at that place in boiling salt, as were his grandfather on the
maternal side. McSorley, the father of John McSorley, was the clerk and
store-keeper at the same time. He afterwards went to teaching, which he followed
the remainder of his life, which terminated some years ago.


Additional Comments:

[Transcriber's note: This book covers several counties in  KY and WV. It was
published in Boyd County.]

Extracted from:

THE BIG SANDY VALLEY
BY WILLIAM ELY
CATLETTSBURG, KY.: Central Methodist, 1887


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