A Road Trip by the Book

Granville, Tennessee hosts a Genealogy Festival each April, at which they focus on the history of a particular family from the community. In 2020 the Huff family was supposed to be the highlighted family, but of course, that festival was postponed due to the Covid pandemic. It suddenly occurred to me about a month ago that they might have re-scheduled the festival for this April. A quick look at their website showed me that they had, and that the Huffs had been re-scheduled as the focus family. The parents of my ancestor, Elzina Huff, are a big question, and I was hoping that someone who would be at Granville for the festival would have the answer.

I was determined to attend, even if I had to drive there myself. Fortunately, my brother is always up for a road trip, so we started making plans. Since we had already discussed revisiting the community near West Liberty, Kentucky, where our Castle grandmother lived until age 10, we decided to make that a part of this trip. We had also never visited nearby White Oak, Kentucky, where our Day great-grandmother was born. I had discovered that our 3rd great-grandmother, Sarah Oney Day, was buried there, so that cemetery went on our list, along with the resting place of our 6th great-grandfather Lewis, who is buried in Leslie County, Kentucky. Leslie County is conveniently on the way to the Cumberland Gap, which was another place my brother and I had always wanted to visit, so that went on the list too. 

We would spend three days working our way through Kentucky, then attend the Genealogy Festival in Tennessee on April 10. If we had time, we might hit a couple of historical sites along the way, and just for fun, a bourbon distillery, since that's a new interest of my brother's. Thank goodness my brother loves to drive--we made 8 states in 5 days! Our plan was to make it from Tulsa to Frankfort, Kentucky, in the first day, stopping at about the halfway mark at the Daniel Boone Home National Historic Site in Defiance, Missouri. 

Daniel Boone Home National Historic Site

Daniel Boone Home, Defiance, MO

Tim had been listening to the audiobook, Boone, by Robert Morgan, and in fact, we listened to a few chapters of it in the car. It was one of the books that inspired our trip and is one of the reasons I called this post, "A Road Trip by the Book." Since we would be visiting the Cumberland Gap, the place for which Daniel Boone is most famous, we thought it would be fitting to visit the place where he spent the last years of his life. 

Boone came to Missouri, then Spanish Louisiana, in 1799 at the age of 65, having been offered 850 acres by the Spanish government. Always in debt and in trouble because of it, Boone gladly accepted the invitation, bringing his wife Rebecca and several of his children. Although the historic site that stands today in Missouri is named for Daniel, it actually was the home of his youngest son, Nathan. According to the Daniel Boone Home website, although Daniel had his own property, he spent most of his last 20 years in Nathan's house, dying there (in the bedroom below) on September 26, 1820, at the age of 86.

Both Daniel and Nathan worked as surveyors, which was interesting to Tim and me because we both had just read the book, Measuring America by Andro Linklater. I would definitely recommend it for any  genealogist or history enthusiast, as there is quite a story behind the efforts to survey the expanding U.S. 

I'm sure the tour guide at the Daniel Boone House was surprised at our reaction to the Gunter chain, a surveyor's measuring tool, that he picked up off a display table in the house. We had just read about how this measuring device, which was invented in 1620 by English mathematician, Edmund Gunter, was adopted by the U.S. Congress in 1785 to measure Western lands for settlement, replacing the colonial metes and bounds system. I could go on and on about how the Gunter chain reconciled different measuring systems and established measurement language that we still use today, but you really just need to read the book. 

Gunter chain at Campus Martius Museum, Marietta, OH

Nathan Boone's surveying notes from Daniel Boone House;
powderhorn made by Daniel Boone

After another six hours of driving, we gratefully sank into our beds at a Hampton Inn in Frankfort.

Maker's Mark Distillery

Our first stop the next morning had nothing to do with genealogy, or at least I don't think so, but in this Covid year my brother had become interested in Kentucky bourbon. He had suggested I watch a documentary about Kentucky and bourbon making that he had seen on Amazon Prime Video, and it really was interesting and educational. Not many of the distilleries are back open for tours, and the one he really wanted to visit--Buffalo Trace in Frankfort--had filled all their tour slots for the date we would be there. 

We ended up on the back roads from Frankfort to Loretto, Kentucky, to visit the Maker's Mark Distillery. We all laughed at the inside joke when the tour guide said, "Did you think you were on the wrong road?" because who would ever think a nationally known distillery is located down a twisting, rural two-lane road? She pointed out this view of the distillery grounds as her favorite and the one that is sketched on the Maker's Mark label.

We thoroughly enjoyed the scenery to, at, and from the distillery; the tour; and even I enjoyed the tasting at the end of our visit.

Oney Cemetery, White Oak, Kentucky

On from Loretto to West Liberty, Kentucky, for the first genealogical site on our trip. On arriving in West Liberty, we first tried to visit our Castle family cemetery on Centerville Road. After a couple of tries at finding this cemetery on past trips, Tim and I had visited it once, and my cousin Linda and I had visited it again a couple of years ago. We knew through Castle cousins in the area that the land on which the cemetery is located was up for sale. Well, apparently, it sold, because we were disappointed on this visit to find access to the cemetery fenced and posted "No Trespassing." 

We turned instead to finding the Oney Cemetery in White Oak--a place for which I had downloaded detailed instructions from Mapcarta. I had never noticed that instead of north/south/east/west, the directions said "turn right, turn left," but from where? After circling West Liberty endlessly--which is easy to do and which we had done before--we finally got out a paper map to find the road mentioned in the directions, 1081, which was not far from the community of White Oak, where our great-grandmother, Sarah Florida Day Castle, was born in 1878. 

After passing through White Oak and turning on 1081, we were supposed to find the cemetery in about 1-1/2 miles. Tim and I have gotten good at finding Kentucky cemeteries, usually half-hidden far up a hill, but we went for several miles without seeing it. Tim turned the car around and suggested we each examine our own side of the road for signs of a cemetery. Going at it from the other direction was the trick--it had apparently been hidden from sight on our way in. I was the first to see it on my side of the road. 

You can't tell from this photo, but it was on a steep incline, and the way up to it was just a grassy track. I offered to walk, but Tim--I called him "intrepid"--was able to drive his car up the narrow track almost to the cemetery gates. We could tell right away that we had the right place; there were lots of Oneys. 

Our main objective was to find the grave of our 3rd great-grandmother, Sarah Oney Day. You can read about Sarah, her siblings, and her children in my post, "The Oneys (and a Couple of Great Stories)." Sarah Jane Oney was the first wife of her 1st cousin, Andrew Jackson Day. The couple married in 1855 when Sarah was 15; after having three children, one of them my 2nd great-grandfather, James Thomas Day, she died in 1862 at age 21. Andrew J. remarried to Catherine Jane Reed. They moved to Ohio in the 1910's and are buried there.

Sarah Oney Day, 1840-1862

Sarah's headstone apparently broke in half at some point; the top half of the headstone is leaning against the bottom half. Below her dates is possibly a verse of some kind; I'm not able to read it.

Since we have found from experience that many Kentucky graves are to be found on the tops of hills within the farm boundaries of individual families, I assume that the Oneys may have owned the land where the cemetery is located, or at least, lived somewhere in the vicinity. I took this photo of a field and hilly vista on the other side of the road from the cemetery. Somehow it's comforting to me to think that my Oney ancestors lived in this pretty little valley.

Having reached the end of Day 2 of our trip, we drove back to the hotel in Frankfort. The next morning we were on our way to the Cumberland Gap, via Wooton, Leslie County, Kentucky, and the cemetery where our 6th great-grandfather, James Lewis, is buried.

Lewis Cemetery, Wooton, Kentucky

Commemorative plaque at Lewis Cemetery

This cemetery was easy to find because a nice Findagrave member named Sandra Feltner had sent me directions. Off Hwy. 80 in Wooton, we turned on Hwy. 699 (Cutshin Road). I had been surprised to find that James was buried in Wooton, as his death place is always given as Cutshin, a name which certainly sticks in your memory.  

I have seen many pictures of this plaque online, but what nobody tells you is that there is barely a foot of grass to stand on to take a picture. One step backwards and you are on a busy road. The plaque reads:

JAMES T. LEWIS

A DARING PIONEER BORN IN WALES, 8-9-1735. DIED

IN WOOTON, KENTUCKY 9-1-1825. A SOLDIER IN

THE REVOLUTIONARY WAR SERVING IN THE

MILITIA. HIS 11,000 DESCENDANTS ANSWERED THE

CALL IN TIME OF WAR, AS WELL AS SERVING IN 

EVERY ELECTIVE OFFICE IN THE USA EXCEPT THE

PRESIDENT'S OFFICE.

It then lists his children by two marriages: by Lady Griffin, 1. Elvira, 2. James, 3. Gideon; by Winnie Henson, 1. Patsy, 2. Andrew, 3. Margaret, 4. John, 5. Nathan, 6. Joseph, 7. Thaddeus, 8. Henry M., 9. Betsy, 10. Samuel, 11. Mary, 12. Absolom, 13. Winnie, 14. Juder, 15. Sallie, 16. Isaac. 

Tim and I are descended from his son John by 2nd wife, Winnie Henson. His daughter, Martha "Patsy" Lewis, married Daniel Reed. Their son, Lewis Reed, married Sarah Patrick. They are the parents of my great-grandmother, Nancy Emily Reed. Nancy Emily married James Thomas Day, the son of Sarah Oney Day, whose grave we found in the Oney Cemetery. The daughter of James Thomas Day and Nancy Emily Reed was my great-grandmother, Sarah Florida Day, who married George Turner Castle of Morgan County, Kentucky. 

While our previous trips to Kentucky had focused on our Castle ancestors, this trip had taken us to the homes and resting places of the families that made up the Day branch of our family. 

This must be a really old cemetery, although the headstones show some more recent burials. Many of the stones are broken off and completely unreadable. Across the road and up the hill was a cemetery that appeared to be newer. It made me wonder if the cemetery had been separated when the road was built. More likely, a new cemetery was built when this one ran out of space. 

Lewis descendants must have had this newer stone laid for James Lewis. I don't know if it replaced an older one, or if it just commemorates James's burial somewhere in this cemetery. Also a note on the middle initial T. that appears in James's name on the plaque, but not on the headstone: Many trees give his name as James Theophilus Lewis, but I have never found a document that gives him a middle name. In fact, most people didn't have middle names in the era in which James lived. Perhaps one of his descendants named James had the middle name, Theophilus, and it was assumed that the name had originated with this James.

We were excited to be on our way to the Cumberland Gap. As many times as I have been to Virginia, Kentucky, and Tennessee, I had never seen the gap through which so many of my southwest Virginia ancestors came to Kentucky.

Cumberland Gap National Historical Park

After leaving the Visitor's Center at the Cumberland Gap National Historical Park, where I spent too much money on books, we drove the 4-mile winding road to Pinnacle Peak. At Pinnacle Peak you are actually standing in Virginia and looking out over the states of Virginia, Kentucky, and Tennessee. The road up was not too harrowing, except for a couple of places where my heights-averse brother had to make blinders with his hand so he couldn't see the view down the mountain. We finally made it to the Pinnacle Peak Overlook; Tim chose to hike into the woods close to the parking lot, while I made my way to the very sturdy overlook with the big strong guardrail. Even I didn't get too close to the edge, so my photos aren't very awe-inspiring.

There are some really cool rock formations in the woods around the overlook.

I couldn't help reflecting on the reactions of the first explorers that saw the rock formations and the view. It's hard to imagine the longhunters, much less families, making this grueling journey up and over a mountain on foot or horseback. It reminded me of the story of my Whitley ancestors who made the trip through the mountains single-file on horseback. Esther Whitley rode with 3-year-old daughter Elizabeth (my 4th great-grandmother) tied to her back and 1-year-old Isabella in her lap. According to the story, the horse fell more than once as they made their way over the mountains.  

We made our modern way through a tunnel under the Gap. We were on our way to Cookeville, Tennessee, to spend the night. I was excitedly looking forward to the next day, which was the Genealogy Festival in Granville.

Genealogy Festival in Granville, Tennessee

It was a rainy Saturday morning, but a lot of people had already come out for the festival(s) in Granville. Granville has gained a reputation in the last few years as a historic town that welcomes visitors to lots of events--nostalgic, musical, and genealogical. The weekend of the genealogy festival was also Mayberry Day and I Love Lucy Day. There would be impersonations of Barney Fife, Floyd the Barber, and Lucy and Dezi; the Darlings would play music again; and members of the Huff families would provide opportunities for descendants to collaborate. 

I was excited to meet James Clemons, one of the genealogical presenters, who I suspected was my 2nd cousin. He is 92 and had a bad bout with Covid this year, but I was able to confirm with him that we share ancestors in Elzina Huff and Stephen Roberts. He is descended from their daughter, Mary/Polly, and I am descended from their daughter, Cornelia. In the photo above, from the Historical Granville Facebook page, I am seated with Anna Stout Stephenson, a presenter and Huff descendant, and the son of James Clemons, who would be my 2nd cousin, once removed.  

Unfortunately, the Huff family members that were going to be in Granville for a reunion on Sunday had postponed the event until August; I had determined that they were probably not my branch of the Huffs anyway, but I had hoped somebody from that group might know where Elzina belonged on the Huff family tree. I did have a chance to visit with Karen Hall Sarraga, another presenter, with whom I had shared family trees on Ancestry, but she didn't have any information on Elzina. Carver Moore, who was manning the Findagrave booth, was a great help. On a large map of Jackson County, Carver pointed out the way to the Dry Fork of Martin's Creek, where Elzina lived, and all the cemeteries in that area. 

After purchasing a new book, The Legacy of Granville Tennessee, and donating a small book of my Huff family blog posts to the Granville Museum Library, Tim and I set off to explore the Dry Fork of Martin's Creek. 

I have no idea if Stephen and Elzina Roberts lived along the road we drove. All I know is what Elzina said in her 1874 divorce complaint--that she had lived on the Dry Fork of Martin's Creek her whole life. Carver told me that Pharrises lived all along that road; DNA tells me that I have a Pharris connection somewhere, but I'm not sure I'll ever know exactly what it is. For now it was enough to know that I had ancestors who lived somewhere along this creek.

We saw evidence all along the road that there had once been homes that no longer exist--even a chimney standing all by itself. It makes me wonder what kind of home Elzina left behind when she left Tennessee. I didn't find answers on this trip, but I did get a feeling for the place where she spent most of her life.

Stones River National Battlefield

Our last stop before heading home was this Civil War battlefield.  I had never heard of it, but Tim knew it as one of the most important battles of the war, and it was in Murfreesboro, only a little over an hour from Granville. Unbeknownst to him, we had an ancestor that might have taken part in the battle--our great-grandfather's brother, Alexander Jackson Smith.

We know that he joined Company A, 33rd Alabama Infantry, C.S.A.; his pension application gives the date of his enlistment as 1861. He was on a muster roll dated 11 March 1862. According to the same pension application, he was wounded at Perryville (October 1862) and held prisoner at Harrodsburg, from where he escaped. We know that Alexander rejoined his company because he was wounded at the Battle of Kennesaw Mountain (June-July 1864) and hospitalized at Macon, Georgia; he was paroled from North Carolina at the end of the war. The Battle of Stones River took place from 31 December 1862 to 2 January 1863. If Alexander had been able to rejoin his company after his capture at Perryville, then it's quite possible he was at Stones River.

Cemetery at Stones River

My brother and I took the self-guided tour of the battlefield and walked several of the trails. I learned about the Pioneer Brigade, created by Major General William Rosecrans, that consisted of two men from each company to serve as an engineer corps--clearing roads, building bridges, etc. According to this sign at the battlefield, "Many of the men. . . had been carpenters or miners in civilian life." Some of the earthworks they built still exist.

The Battle of Stones River, like many other Civil War battles, had to do with protecting or disrupting supply routes. The Nashville and Chattanooga Railroad was vital to both armies fighting at Stones River; today the railroad still runs right behind the Stones River cemetery and this monument to the Hazen Brigade, the only Union soldiers who didn't retreat during the fighting on December 31. Over 400 of them died here. Most monuments were built after the war; this one was built by the Hazen Brigade survivors in 1863, while the war was still going on, and became an attraction on the railway line after the war. 

One Last Book

One other audiobook that we listened to on the trip was News of the World by Paulette Jiles. Tim had seen the movie but hadn't read the book, and I had intended to do both. The central character is Captain Jefferson Kyle Kidd, a veteran of the Civil War. It is 1870, and Captain Kidd travels all around Texas reading the "news of the world" to its citizens. His life changes when he accepts the job of returning a 10-year-old Kiowa captive named Johanna to her German family in Castroville. 

Along with the latest blog posts I have written about our Wheat family in Texas, I think News of the World has piqued Tim's interest in Texas history. Our next trip, hopefully this summer, will take us to Texas and Alabama.