On August 5, 1977, Robert Rennick interviewed historian Lon Carter Barton at his home in Mayfield for over four hours discussing the history of community names in Graves County and the Jackson Purchase. Rennick was touring Kentucky researching the place names of villages, towns, and cities throughout the Commonwealth for a forthcoming publication. Below is the transcription of the first of six audio cassettes recorded that day.
Rennick: My next scheduled meeting will be with Lon Carter Barton on Friday evening on August 5th in Mayfield. I’m scheduled to meet with him at a restaurant to go over the Jackson Purchase place name survey and find out what I can on the Graves County list. I’m not sure this particular atmosphere will be conducive to tape recording him and whether we can get together later at his home to tape record. Or at least mention it at our next scheduled meeting.
Rennick: I brought some questions along to…
Barton: Now here, ah, are the ones that I did not get anybody for. Let’s see…
Rennick: Ballard…
Barton: Ballard and Hickman. Ah, I should have gotten my old man to get speaking to this fellow, that’s his turf down there. But there was considerable confusion on that night. We had a tornado over our church and there was a hard downpour, a hard rainfall. During the meeting, someone came in and said and it was blowing up a storm. Raining, pouring down and at 10, it ran a little late, and we had the insulation blow off the church. And we had an announcement or two, beside this one, and I don’t know and they ran off. And people were getting sort of fidgety, and we dismissed the group and there was considerable confusion about getting out and getting in the rain and in all of this. I simply failed to get to this old fellow and I know he would be the one. If you would want to send it to him and that would be fine thing to do. Divian, D-I-V-I-A-N, Barlow.
Rennick: Barlow? Divian.
Barton: Well, I expect he’d be real good. But Judy wasn’t there that evening. So, I didn’t even have a chance to check with her. I knew … I think she’d be perfect and would do it. Um, but now in Hickman County, the best person would be, I would think, we be a girl by the name of … she was here in college in Murray … she writes for the Hickman Gazette.
Rennick: Virginia …
Barton: Virginia Jewell.
Rennick: She’s kin to [William]?
Barton: Not that I know of. Virginia and Joe was Virginia Honchell and if they are kin, it would be her husband because [Lynn] … was her last name … she never married. Now this is correct, the spelling on this one. Beulah.
Rennick: B-E-U…
Barton: Right.
Rennick: Beulah.
Barton: Yes, that’s right. Some of these I’ve never heard of, some of them pert near, I don’t know about this one, [Vayola … Mayola], I don’t know about [Prose]. Beelerton is there, Oakton is there, Ella is very close to St. Vince. The place we were talking about tonight. Fulgham and Moscow of course.
Rennick: How do you pronounce that number four?
Barton: Fauljim.
Rennick: Fauljim
Barton: Yes, instead of Faulgim. A soft “g” there, Fauljim. There are also newer and some of them not, but Virginia Jewell would be the best person to get that and I say either Judy or the little old man. If you want to take those …
Rennick: I already have a copy.
Barton: Have you. Well, if I ever find time … of course we start back to school on the twenty-fourth of this month. If I could find time between now and then, I’d be glad to run over there with these and give them to these folks but I can’t guarantee it. It just depends on if I can, I’d be glad to cause I’d like to get a book that Judy just did called the “Brave cause of valor” or something like this which I’ve never seen.
Rennick: She is sending out now a …
Barton: She also did something on Fort Jefferson. Okay, this is a book by Mrs. Jett and in up here.
Rennick: In McCracken.
Barton: In McCracken. Now, she did her’s a lot better than I did mine. She packed it up and I expect it was written up pretty precisely. I did mine on the basis of the highways, pretty much like she did but what I did was start at Mayfield and you’ll really have to get your bifocals to read this. If I had time to type this and if I had a typewriter. It’s like, I like ham and eggs, if I had the ham and eggs without the eggs. But I didn’t have access to a typewriter at the time I did this, so I just scribbled it down here. But what I did here is start from Mayfield, and which is fortunately, which is your number one location and I tried to have an approximate, or recently exact, milage distances from Mayfield and in what direction and where these different places were. And then over here I did a map, a sketch rather, of Graves County it’s very easy to draw because it’s got these four right angle corners. I think it’s the only county in the State that looks like that. Tennessee down here, McCracken County here, Marshall over to our east along with Calloway, and Fulton County down in the far corner to the left, and Hickman and then Carlysle, and then just a little corner of Ballard and just a little drive out here. And I just numbered these to correspond with your correspondence numbers over here with the exception of 29 and 31. These two, I heard of both of them but I really don’t know where either of them was. They’re both no longer on any current map.
Rennick: There’s a road that goes to Golo.
Barton: Well, yeah Golo. No, Holifield and Bremo those are the two that are not familiar to me. I’ve heard of Weymouth which is down in the south part of the county somewhere. I’m sure that the highway department map which carries all of these communities, that goes years and years back, because the secondary roads … pretty well has been handed down in name from some of these early roads. In other words, if you took the ghost towns off the highway and some of their road names would lose their nomenclature of the road that tied into the nomenclature of the community. So, Weymouth, I’m pretty sure, would be locatable on a highway map and I know that it’s, in general, in the south part down here near around … not so very far from the State line, but I swear I could not give an exact location. Oh, Obion Satisfied is over around Dublin because that’s the place where the whole Obion originated over in southeast along here in Hickman County, but I did not know enough about it until I spotted it on the map. But as I said, I’m really certain it’s in this area over here, not very far from Murphy Pond which is swamp that you wouldn’t believe.
Rennick: I have some questions about some of these in Hickman County.
Barton: Now here is some of our pronunciations in Graves County as far as I can tell.
Rennick: What I thought I’d do is you ask me questions and then in your discussions you’ll be mentioning the name of the community I can get the …
Barton: Alright, all I’ve done, not quite as much as Mrs. Jett, she put diacritical marks over the letters and all this. I in most cases just put the accent marks and in some cases syllabication for these but I didn’t really go into as much to marking the accents or I mean letters as I believe she did. But now, how did you want to …
Rennick: Well, let’s just go in order here and mention, well, and ask me some of the questions and the answers you will be pronouncing the name.
Barton: Okay.
Rennick: Now the number one there, I want to confirm the account in Davis’s book on how it got its name.
Barton: I can’t vouch for his account. Simply because there are others that have been given. But the difficulty with trying to really get to the heart of the problem on how Mayfield was named is that none of the stories I’ve heard have been authenticated nor can they be authenticated. Of course, Mayfield the town was named after the creek. Now I mean this is perfectly easy to determine, but how the creek was named and under what circumstances. Trabue Davis’s account is one, there is another one that George Mayfield was part of the Davy Crockett’s group of hunters that he and Crockett were close friends but that he later went west to Texas with Crockett and was killed at the Alamo and all this. Well, this cannot be authenticated. I tried to do this and they don’t have any record of a Mayfield at the Alamo. I guess the most common folklore story about it is one that Trabue Davis wrote about, the man being shot out on the log and falling into the creek. And later people began to refer to the creek as the creek that George Mayfield was shot. And gradually the creek became Mayfield Creek, but the problem here is, to me, this indicates that there’s a good bit of traffic along the creek at a time before the town was ever established and the town itself was established about 1819. And there is no documented proof that there was this much movement around Mayfield Creek before the town of Mayfield was established. On the other hand, nobody has ever shown that Mayfield, the town, or Mayfield the creek, was named directly after a family that lived in this area by that name. Although there’s another story, that there was a George Mayfield and all these stories – George is a common given name. There is another story that George Mayfield was a large landowner, and the town was more or less named, or the creek was named, after this man that owned a great deal of land, many acres of land at the creek bottom. Well, the thing that sort of shoots that out of the water is that the large landowners – very few or none of them were recorded in [Willard Rouse] Jillson – has been owned, occupied, settled or anything else by anybody by the name of Mayfield. So, it’s pretty hard to come up with an absolute factual account of how Mayfield Creek was named although it is pretty well definitely known that Mayfield, the town, was named after the creek. One thing about Mayfield though that sets apart from the other counties and towns in the Purchase, we have been the county seat of the county from the beginning. The same act of the legislature that created Graves County established Mayfield as the county seat. And as you know, Calloway had Wadesboro before they had Murray, and McCracken they had – on what was over there – Wilmington before they had Paducah, then they had Blandville before they had Wickliffe in Ballard and so on. So, Mayfield dates back to, and its legal structure, to 1823 when it was founded by an act of the legislature at the same time the legislature created Graves County. I wish the legislators went one step further and given a pretty good account on how Mayfield got named which they didn’t do. Now, where I we coming up to now? Fancy Farm?
Rennick: Number 2.
Barton: Well, now of course, it’s locally pronounced Fancy Farm. Yeah, the accents are there on the two.
Rennick: Which of the several accounts of the name is true?
Barton: I would say the one that polls the inspector for the postal service to visit this little Catholic community that at that time had not been named but which wanted a name because it wanted a post office. The inspector’s reflections on the fact that the community had some very well kept neat and attractive homes, and fences were in good repair, and barns were in good shape, and all these things, led him to, just as far as impressions go at first, that Fancy Farm would be a good name for the community. I really think that had a little bit of historical authenticity. Mrs. [Anna Courtney] Hunt in Fancy Farm is the local historian, and she gave me that story and I am inclined to believe that is probably the most believable one of the different ones I’ve heard. I’ve heard one or two others, but I think that it does have a little touch of folklorish element, but at the same time I think that was the real acclamation for it. Now, you have why it was disincorporated in?
Rennick: In 1944.
Barton: The only reason that I can think of, was that an incorporation might have been at that time required to maintain some services that an unincorporated place would not have been required to maintain, such as a fire department, although they do have a volunteer fire department, a very good volunteer fire department out there now. But an incorporated community would have been expected to hold elections for a governing body – for a mayor or for somebody to occupy executive office to say the least. And sometimes I think, in case of one or two other places through here, the tax structure or the tax burden was a bit rare when they incorporated – which made it incumbent on them to pay salaries for the common good, for the mayor and pay salaries to the town fathers, so to speak. That might have been a reason, but I don’t know, other than this rather sort of common sense thought on the subject. Now, you say what’s there now. The church, that is the center of Fancy Farm – St. Jerome. St. Jerome’s Church is the nerve center and the heart of the little community. And as I told you a little while ago, it’s about 95 percent Catholic at that area. I’m talking about that area – Fancy Farm is practically about 100 percent and for a distance about a mile or two or so from the community – the parish lines are roughly a mile or two beyond the town itself and it’s just overwhelmingly Catholic.
Rennick: Are stores in there?
Barton: Right. Oh yes, they have several small stores. A few service stations, I believe they have two or three filling stations, groceries – stores of this type – nothing there either – not even a restaurant there. There is one fairly good little industry there, it’s a packing house – Brown Thompson Packing Company. They have a fairly large business in this area – meats, grass or products like that, but they ship …
Rennick: Food products?
Barton: Food products, salted primarily – hams and so on.
Rennick: Now, who was the man that owned that Fancy Farm?
Barton: I don’t recall. I rather think it was, I’m just relating to … back here rather … then I don’t remember. If I had to answer the one on the man who owned the Fancy Farm, without seeing this I’m not sure I’d ever … I don’t think the bell is ringing very well, but since I see John Peeples, my recollection is that there is a connection here, a relationship between his name and the fellow who had the farm and I believe that’s who it was. I see that you have a Mr. Whetherby. It could have been Mr. Whetherby, Mr. Whetherby I’m sure he was there. He was one of the founders, early fathers of the town. I believe John Peebles was the one I’ve seen – I give him credit for having the fancy farm.
Rennick: …
Barton: Sure enough. Did this name of the community precede the …
Rennick: … post office.
Barton: It could have, because I think the fellow that recommended the post office for the town. He was also the one that suggested the name like I said a while ago. So, in a sense although the two were related in the same transaction, so to speak, I think in a sense the name would have had to come before the post office because I think that was what evolved from being there from the beginning and decided what the name ought to be. Alright, Water Valley.
Rennick: When and by whom was that first settled?
Barton: I would say shortly after the Civil War. And that might take in too much ground, I’d say in the 1860s or early 1870s. It was the beneficiary, you might say, of the old town of Feliciana’s decline. As Feliciana, which was located about three miles, I suppose, east of Water Valley declined and went down through the 60’s and 70’s. Water Valley inherited or picked up on the other side the business and commerce all that Feliciana had experienced over a long period of time. Of course, the railroad was the responsible thing here. The railroad ran through Water Valley and of course the railroad was completed in that neighborhood in the 1850s. 1856, I believe. And it was the agent that brought the Water Valley really into the … Morse Station was the first name of what is Water Valley.
Rennick: Morse?
Barton: Morse, M-O-R-S-E.
Rennick: An “S” and the end of it?
Barton: No, I’ve never seen it with the “S”. Now, I don’t know if Morse is the one that settled it, but I would presume so. It was a fairly common practice on this railroad, as it was on other railroads, to gain an easement or gain a right-away or some passage permit over a fellow’s farm and in return the railroad would put a station there with his name identifying it. And this was done in the case of Wingo for instance, it was done in the case of Boaz, it was done in the case of Viola, it was the man’s wife I believe in Viola, it was named for her instead of him. And I would assume that this was the background for Morse here and Water Valley, that it is an old family in that community and in that neighborhood. And although someone could very easily question the fact that Mr. Morris was the first settler and I’m inclined to think probably that he was.
Rennick: Do we know what his first name was?
Barton: No, I don’t believe that has been recorded. I’m sure that it could be found, but in just referring to Morse Station, that’s never been given. Now, you say what was there before the railroad came through …
Rennick: Was there anything there before the railroad town?
Barton: The railroad really started it. And the railroad now if you come to Fulton County, do you have Fulton County on there?
Rennick: Yes, further on …
Barton: Well, Feliciana was the real stimulus for the beginning of Water Valley and that was exactly because Felicianains refused to let that same railroad pass anywhere near their town. And it was necessary then to transfer the route westward from – two or three miles and that placed it right on through what is now Water Valley, or what was then Morse Station.
Rennick: Now, this Morse Station had a station on the railroad?
Barton: Right.
Rennick: So, in other words it did not have that name until the railroad came through?
Barton: Right, right.
Rennick: So, was there anything there before…
Barton: I think not. I think the railroad was the reaction with the same track that gave the, you might say, death bell to one community down there and gave rise, or gave birth, to the one right next to it. Now, you ask how far from Feliciana was it – about three miles – at least the railroad was about three miles.
Rennick: Why was that name changed to Water Valley rather than …
Barton: To Morris Station, or just Morris… Presumably, cause of the fact that it is a low sort of drainage basin of two or three creeks. The Bayou de Chein Creek is the main one, and I take it that it was an area that was fairly subject to occasional flooding, and somebody decided it might be more geographically correct to refer to it as Water Valley than it would Morris Station. And it could be that Morris no longer had any influence in the community. I don’t know how that change came about, but there were changes in a good many other names – Pryorsburg, at one time was Bogey – Symsonia, out in the northwest corner in this county, or in the northeast corner, was named Slabtown. These name changes came over, I guess, a period of time without any specific one explainable reason maybe. But I have an idea that Water Valley was sort of an indication of the fact that it was rather easily flooded, because if you drive through there now it’s pretty obvious that it’s a drainage … does not runoff too terribly well. It’s in a low area, probably one of the lowest areas, in fact in that area down there in that part of the county, because around it there are very high hills.
Rennick: What’s out there right now?
Barton: Well, some businesses. Water Valley has declined probably in some way. The old main street, the old main business street, is all but deserted – the one that faces the railroad. Highway 45 of course has shifted all business activities from that main street up to the highway, where there are a few stores and a restaurant and several churches. The school, however, has been closed for a long while and the bank has been out of business there for the last ten or twelve years. And Water Valley is not economically, probably economically active, as it was say twenty years ago – twenty-five. They used to have a rather strong cannon factory down there. They had a store named Haskell’s General Dry Goods Company something like that – that typically, you know, county general store that handled all king of merchandise that you would need or want, but those businesses pretty well passed on. And so, but what there is at Water Valley now runs along the highway, but at the same time the residential areas of Water Valley are very attractive, neat, well-kept homes. I don’t know what the population is out there but probably 500 or 600 people. It’s really more a part of the Fulton trade area and the Fulton general cultural area than it is Graves County, cause Fulton County is almost at the edge of town, right on the extremely southeastern corner, I mean southwestern corner of the county. But there are several churches in Water Valley – there is a Church of Christ there, a Baptist Church – both of them I think are very active, very good number of members – there’s a Methodist Church, one of the oldest Methodist…
End of audio cassette number 1.
