Dear Subscribers to the Lewis County, Kentucky Discussion Group, I would like to thank Hermon Brown Fagley and Derre S. Maybury for their helpful messages! I greatly appreciate their scholasticism. Let us further examine the Agreement. According to the Agreement recorded in Lewis County Deed Book "P", page 363, dated November 15, 1860, John BOYLE was the owner of a steam engine that was located at the "Young America" sawmill on Briery Creek in Lewis County, Kentucky. I wish I knew where that mill was situated! John BOYLE(S) sold the steam engine to S.S. SMITH for the sum of $284.45, which was to be paid on or before February 10, 1861, about three months from the drafting of the Agreement. S.S. SMITH was to saw and deliver a boat pattern to John BOYLE at the mill, by November 25, 1860. If Mr. SMITH fulfilled this stipulation, Captain BOYLE was to pay fifty dollars for the boat pattern. The pattern was to be sufficient for a boat one hundred feet long and twenty feet wide. The further sum of fifty dollars was to be given to S.S. SMITH on February 10, 1861, provided that Mr. SMITH had paid off and discharged his debt of $284.45, due John BOYLE for the steam engine. If SMITH failed to pay the $284.45 as required, he would lose the fifty dollars due for the boat pattern. In addition, S. SMITH would give up and deliver the steam engine to John BOYLE. The two witnesses to this Agreement were Henry MCKEE and O. WOOD (given name unklnown to me). The Lewis County Clerk wrote a date of January 7, 1861, which appears to have been the day the Clerk recorded the Agreement. I have no knowledge of how the arrangement worked out. However, Captain John BOYLE's steamboating days were near an end in February of 1861, because his obituary (1901, Ironton, Ohio) stated that John BOYLE was a steamboatman in antebellum days. My questions, in conclusion, are in two clusters: Question Cluster Number One: Could the steam engine that was at the sawmill have been an engine for a steamboat? Or, was it the kind of a steam engine that would be used to run a sawmill? Were steam engines for boats and steam engines for sawmills interchangeable? Question Cluster Number Two: Does anyone have more information regarding S.S. SMITH and O. WOOD? What were their given names? What were their occupations? Where did they live? I hope to find out more, concerning any connections to John BOYLE. Thanks! I am willing to share any information at my disposal. Sincerely, Randal W. Cooper