Jackson Purchase Historical Society

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 third of six audio cassettes recorded that day.

Barton: … [Feliciana continued] but they just didn’t name very many villages and communities for slaves, whether they killed, fighting each other, or whether they weren’t. I wouldn’t rule it out entirely, but I think it’s just a little bit hard to take … Now, as far as I can say, in the 1890s the town had hit sort of a bound shallow grave, then it just folded in the 20^th century. And until as late as twenty years ago there was nothing there, as recently I mean, as thirty years ago. There hasn’t been anything there for a long time, except for some of the residences. Now, you can still get sort of a pattern of how the streets may have looked by the arrangement of houses away from this crossroads where the historical marker is, which goes in one direction. And we can tell by the way the houses are built facing one particular area which is not on the road. I mean, if you were on the road, you wouldn’t know anything about it. It is an offshoot off the main highway there, which obviously dates back to the time that there was something there in a way of a street that these houses faced into. So, they’re old houses.

Rennick: There are people that still live there?

Barton: Yeah, people are still there. They may locally still refer to, at least the crossroads, as Old Feliciana. That’s the colloquialism for it – Old Feliciana but they always call it old. They never did say Feliciana, because there’s nothing there in Feliciana and I don’t hear it anymore. Okay, I’m moving on down here – Kansas. 1854, now that’s the strongest clue to me on how Kansas was named. 1854, you know, the headlines in the papers carried an awful amount of news on Kansas, and awful amount news on Cuba. So, my theory on both of those in Graves County, basically is the same – that the Kansas-Nebraska Bill had been just enacted in 1854. An awful lot of excitement over what was thought to be a free state or a slave state and an awful lot of debates in Congress over the issue of slavery on the plains and all these types of things and the organization of Kansas. People moving to Kansas either for slavery or against slavery and all this sort of general excitement would lead me to think that here in Graves County in 1854, or there abouts, the name would be given to the community. There’s nothing there now. It’s a ghost town just like Old Feliciana and Old Kansas. At one time, it was a voting precinct and had a couple of stores and was a fairly well-established community. Nothing there at all. The site where it was located is between Pottsville and Melber. I got it on my map here. I’ll get it for you. It’s in the northwest quadrant, I guess you’d say, of the county. But there’s nothing there now, except one or two residences. Okay, now we come on down to Wheel.

Rennick: When and by whom was that settled?

Barton: I don’t know who were the first settlers, unless it was a fellow named Biggs. The father of the old gentleman who died there not so long ago named Fred Biggs, who had lived forever there. It dates back to at least 1892. This is where [Alben] Barkley was born. In fact, Mr. Biggs occupied the same farm that Barkley’s birthplace is on. There’s a marker there at that point. It was just at that time sort of a wide place in the road, it never did reach what you’d call a community level other than the fact that it had a store, a general store and it had, I believe, a one-room schoolhouse. The date of 1892 gives me sort of an idea on how the name was derived with all the activity of the agricultural Wheel of the farmers semi-populist movement that was very active in this part of the country in the 1890s. All the way from 1890 to the end of the decade, really. In other words, this is sort of a forerunner of the populist party. Agricultural workers were right dissatisfied with the way things were and they organized these so-called Wheel movements and Granger movements and this type thing around in different places. I think this is where the name must have originated – through a political relationship or political connotation.

Rennick: How did the group get its name, Wheel?

Barton: Well, the symbol I think, or the organization’s, was a wheel and the spokes ran out from the hub. The symbol being sort of a sign of unity, a sign of brotherhood, you know, a sign of all the farmers banded together in a great movement to achieve what they wanted in the way of better farm prices and lower interest rates, more regulations of railroads and all this sort of thing. I think it was an agricultural oriented name, pretty much.

Rennick: What’s there now?

Barton: It’s another ghost town. Now, there was never much there, but it’s gone now. The store is no longer there.

Rennick: Do people live there?

Barton: The Biggs family. They’re the ones that keep Wheel alive, if you could say it’s still alive. Why Mr. Fred Biggs’ son lives there in the same place and his son lives nearby. And so, I believe probably that L. L. Biggs could give you some information on the exact time of the founding and maybe the exact founder, but I would go along with the 1890s as being roughly it. And I say, the main claim to fame of Wheel is the birthplace of Alben Barkley and I’m not sure of that date. I should know it, but I don’t.

Rennick: It’s about that time.

Barton: Yeah.

Rennick: Okay now, the next few questions I need to know then, for each – when and by whom it was settled … when and by whom, why and for what it was named and what’s there now. Everything, starting with [Fifths].

Barton: Now that’s Bell City. I think I can go through several of these pretty quickly cause … I don’t, it sounds spur of the minute … I don’t expect I’ll be able to answer some of these in much detail. Bell City is the full name of this community. I noticed on this list it had Bell, or Bell City. I circled Bell City because that’s the way it is named. You know where it is? On the state line, on the Tennessee state line, southeastern corner of Graves County. That’s about all I know about it. I presume that a family named Bell was the reason for the name. And it was not one of the oldest communities by that name, now unless there’s a same place that had an earlier different name. I don’t think that Bell City is particularly an old town compared to Farmington and Feleciana and some of those. Now, there is a pottery there and that’s the big thing … that is a right well-known pottery. There are two or three churches, one of which is a church you don’t find around here much, the Latter-day Saints have a church there. It has also a Church of Christ and a Baptist Church and maybe a Methodist Church. A good bit of lumbering goes on down there – there’s a big sawmill not very far from Bell City. And there’s a very, very, big Indian mound not far from Bell City, but it never has been opened and I doubt it ever will be. I understand the people that own that property are very unwilling to have it tampered with. So that right there takes care of Bell City, except you want to put “city” in there. Now Boaz, that is not Boy Ez, it is just Bohze – a long oh – Boaz, just like it was a B-Oh-Z. That was named after Joshua Boaz and he got in on the same procedure as Jerman Wingo did when he gave the railroad passage through his plantation which was [marketed]. Joshua Boaz and Jonathon Pryor and Jerman Wingo, I think right now, according to the 1850 census were the three largest landowners, and along with that went slave ownership and money value of their estates. They had plantation sized operations. And Joshua Boaz was to the north part of the county, like the other two were to the south part of the county. Now his place was directly north of Mayfield about seven miles and about three miles east of the present highway – 45 North. Today, Boaz is still there. And I believe there is probably still a post office route out of there but I’m not … it used to be … but there was until fairly recently. Hickory, I think now, covers that area but Boaz has a couple of stores and that’s just about it. Symsonia, now that is “sim” like in S-I-M, S-O-N is the accented syllable, Symsonia. It’s in the northeast corner of the county on the McCracken County line. It is a rather prosperous community. It’s one the larger ones in Graves County. Voting precinct, I think they vote about six or seven hundred people. And it has a big school, high school, a good number of residences, several churches in the area, around there, a bank, one of the Mayfield banks, it has a big general store, it has a post office, it has some services like, I believe, a little medical center, drug store – combined, and some retail businesses, besides the general store there, and two or three other stores I believe. Now, Symsonia was allegedly called Slabtown in its early days and I don’t know what Symsonia relates to now. I just don’t know. Bill Powell would be the best man I think to contact.

Rennick: Bill Powell.

Barton: Yeah, he’s from there … He’s a reporter for the Courier-Journal

Rennick: He used to an editor for the Paducah Democrat?

Barton: Yeah, Bill knows more about Symsonia than I guess anybody, near anywhere near there. Now, Viola is not very far from Boaz. Viola is, you know, where the State Police Barracks are on 45 North going toward where Paducah is located, that’s West Viola. Now Viola, the old town of Viola, is over on the railroad which is about two miles east. It’s an old railroad community. I believe that place was named for a wife of the family that owned the land from which the railroad got its easement and that was the Whittemore family. The Whittemore family is still there, in fact Mr. Whittemore still runs the big store there which is about all that Viola’s got now. A good bit of the traffic that used to be at Viola, near the railroad – activity, shifted over to West Viola around the State Police Barracks. The stores, and so on, are on the highway, like what happened at Water Valley, with the exception of this big store of Mr. Whittemore’s. I think he’s also got a lumber mill too, there. He would be the one to see in Viola and he could give you all kinds of information, Mr. John Whittemore.

Rennick: I’d seen an article about him …

Barton: Yeah, there was an article, was it in the Courier-Journal? I believe it was in the Courier-Journal. Some time back … about Mr. Whittemore. Okay now Folsomdale goes back to 1890. I don’t know who was the settler there. I have an idea that by that time maybe one or so individuals who would have arrived like they did in the middle of the wilderness, you know, and this is where I’m going settle and therefore, he would be the first settler – like John Anderson was in Mayfield and Levi Lowe was to Lowes and the Willetts were to Fancy Farm. I have an idea that some of these later towns, like Sedalia and Folsomdale and so on, kind of just more or less developed up in way a town today would. Sort of a gradual collection of stores and houses and residences and so on, and before long you have a little community settled, and no one individual would be maybe responsible more than his neighbor would have been for the development of it to begin with. But it was definitely named after Grover Cleveland’s wife Frances Folsom and that makes me sure that the name, at least, was applied to the community in the 1890s after Cleveland’s election to the presidency.

Rennick: Why did they honor her?

Barton: Well, I don’t know why they didn’t call it Cleveland but being such a strong Democratic section, I can understand why they would do the next best thing and name it after the first Democrat’s wife that was in the White House there since the Civil War. I really don’t know why they didn’t name it Cleveland unless there was another Cleveland already in the state and that was a common problem. But that was named after Frances Folsom Cleveland. Now Melber…

Rennick: What’s there now?

Barton: Well, it’s pretty much a residential community – one business, one grocery store, one garage, couple of churches, or if you consider Folsomdale as being maybe extended a couple of miles around, I’d say three churches. No school, it’s in the Lowes school district but a voting precinct, in fact I believe there are two voting precincts. I believe they have an East Folsomdale and West Folsomdale down there. They have a mill, a couple of stores along the highway there and Folsomdale is the center of a telephone exchange that serves a very large area of north Graves. So Folsomdale is a fairly thriving little town and I believe that is where there is another nursery, rather large nursery either there or Viola, or West Viola – right along the highway there. It’s about a couple hundred people and they are on the highway. I don’t know, maybe again, they’re expanding it might run four hundred or so in all. Alright, now Melber. I don’t know where that name came from at all. I don’t know when it … Melber is more really associated with McCracken County than it is to Graves County. It’s not all together in either one, I mean the line divides Melber. One of our county commissioners comes from the very edge of the county up there, as a matter of fact, he lives there almost at the McCracken County line. So, it’s definitely part of Graves County but as far as having a strong cultural identity to Graves County, I don’t think Melber does. I think it tends to identify with Paducah and McCracken County than it does with us. But I believe there are some business places there on the Graves County side. They have a big trading day there once a year, although that takes place over in McCracken, I think. There are some businesses on the Graves County side of the line but nothing particularly big, I don’t think. And Cuba, as I said a while ago in relation to Kansas, I think Cuba came along in the 1850s – 1852, 1853 and along in there. And you know, there was a considerable agitation in Washington at that time about the desirability of annexing Cuba, although Cuba belonged to Spain. There was this proposal put forward that if Spain would not sell Cuba under a negotiated arrangement that the United States should go and then and take it by force. And this, I recall, was about 1852 and the Democrats were very strongly organized and supported this and as I suspect southern Democrats. So, I rather think that the prominence of Cuba and the news media of that time maybe rang a bell when they organized the little town down here south of Mayfield by ten or twelve miles. Still, I don’t know who the main instigator of Cuba was, I don’t know who was the first one there. But it is just about ten miles south of here on Highway 303, I think. Cuba is like these other places, some of them are divided into the old Cuba and the newer Cuba when the highway was constructed that I just mentioned. It bypassed the standing business district and therefore the standing business district has pretty well deteriorated now but, on the highway, there are two three stores, a couple of restaurants, a filling station, a mill and so on. There are two or three churches in the community. There has up until this year been a high school, and this year Cuba High School has been closed. That has created quite a bit of agitation down there. Lots of people there been concerned about that, but actually I think they had 79 students this last year, it pretty well quit operating. I never had tracked down any one single individual who has been responsible for the founding of Cuba, although I’m sure it’s somebody that must have gotten in there in the 1850s at a time when all this excitement was going on about the island and given it the name. I wish I knew who it was.

Rennick: I’ll check the post office list, and something might be there.

Barton: That might give you some clues on it. Now the Baptist Church in Cuba observed its centennial about four years ago, which was made at … no, longer than that, I guess it’s been ten years nearly. The Baptist Church dates back in Cuba to about 1860, now this is much longer ago that I thought it was, or else it was more than a centennial, it was maybe a 125^th anniversary. I was thinking that the Baptist Church in Cuba was organized in 1859, but I’m sure it’s been much more recently than 1959 when they had their centennial. At any rate, Cuba was on the map of the Civil War activity. It was organized, the town was there during the war. Do you have more? How many more do we have?

Rennick: Let’s see thirty-two…

Barton: Oh yeah. Well, Tri City. You don’t care about locations, do you? I mean I got all the locations over here.

Rennick: Yes, that’s already down on the maps.

Barton: I don’t know how that developed, or when, or anything. I have an idea it was a later community, because I don’t have any reference on it prior to the Civil War anywhere. Lynnville was an early community. Lynnville dates all the way back to the early 1820s, presumably the Lynn family was instrumental in naming it. But as to the exact date, I think it was about 1828 or maybe 1829. Lynnville was on a creek down there called Terrapin Creek, and Terrapin Creek was one of the early sites of development just like Trace Creek was in the north and the Bayou de Chein Creek was in the southwest. But Lynnville was an early town, quite early. Today Lynnville has a couple of churches, and a couple of stores, and that’s about it, enough to continue the identity but not very much more than that.

Rennick: We all don’t know who that was named…

Barton: Some Lynn, I’ve understood, but I don’t know the first name. I had the idea that at one time it could have been named after Lynn Boyd, who was politically active over there in McCracken County and later, you know, the Speaker of the House and all this. But the date, unless you find out … and unless it’s been a change to the name in the 1850s because Lynnville as a site was there when Lynn Boyd was still in diapers, so too be. He had much more than a write up when, you know, Lynnville was already a pretty good established settlement, but there could have been a change of name and I’m not … but I don’t think there was, I think it was Lynnville from the start. Now Boydsville … and now notice all these “villes” are … Pottsville, Boydsville, and Lynnville … they’re all first syllable accents. Boydsville was named after the Boyd family on the state line. This is a state line community and here again it was an old one, but not as old as Lynnville. Boydsville and Boyds Crossing were used interchangeably and date back to the 1850s. I thought here again that this could have been related to Lynn Boyd, but I don’t think it was because there was a prominent family in that general area whose descendants are still living here in Mayfield. The Boyd family, I believe, was more likely to have given the name than Lynn Boyd. And like Lynnville, Boydsville, was there some years before then. Pottsville, I don’t know a thing about. I don’t know when it was organized, founded … I don’t know if it was named after a Potts, but there are people by that name here and it could be the way it was named. Now, Dogwood is simply Dogwood, without the Grove. And Boydsville, and we’re going back to Boydsville for a minute, has a store there now and that’s about it. It’s nearly ghost town statis. Pottsville, has a couple of stores and a couple of churches and that’s about all that remains there. Dogwood, is really a store, although there is a church across the road, but the store itself is Dogwood. When people refer going to Dogwood, they’re taking about going to Holzhousers Grocery. I don’t know that this is the case … I don’t have any idea when Dogwood was established but I think the name comes from the tree, just like Pilot Oak, Lone Oak, Hickory Grove and so on. I think Dogwood, according to what they tell me at Holzhousers Grocery, originally was … that name originated with the prevalence of the dogwood tree out in there. Taylor, is just a little distance northeast of Dogwood and it’s named after a family. It’s still there. It’s not a terribly old town. I think Taylor, Taylor and Symsonia, are kind of twin cities. If you find out if Symsonia was started about 1870, or 75, Taylor was pretty near that same date because they’re not that far away and they were, I think, established about the same general period. Now this is the one, I told you I didn’t know a thing about except the name has a very … Holifield, and that’s a long “oh” there. A very prominent family around Dublin, near Dublin, in the southwest part of the county and I believe that probably originated with that family. Although, I’m not … it’s no longer anything. There’s no such place now as Holifield, and there’s not very much out in Kaler, and I forgot to mention, except a fairly large sawmill. A big sawmill there and there’s a grocery, I think, and a service station but …