Otter and Beaver Creek Settlers There is a powerful thread which ties together the Otter and Beaver Creek families. They were bound up in a union or clan related families, shaped by blood and by marriage. The migrations from North Carolina demonstrates the cohesion of these groups as no other act could do, and a study of the families contributes to a piecing together of their backgrounds. Finding the same groups living side by side in a static community does not give the impression of closeness that is to be found when the same families are to be found together after a move of several hundred miles. The most valuable possession a man had in those days was his kinsmen and neighbors. In many cases they were the same. They lived together in a society which operated with no cash and they existed in alien and strange places which shaped their behavior and outlook, and they did so because of long standing relationships. They were of the same stock, if not of common blood. They were nevertheless a body cut out of common background and molded from the clay of a common origin. What was important to them was the knowledge that it was only the people around them that offered dependability. Such a condition shaped their view on marriage. Romantic love may have existed and probably did, but mention of it is rarely found in colonial literature. What mattered was the conservation of capital and the maintenance of status. Marriage was an avenue to accomplish these goals. Both men and women were aware of this and community influence had more meaning to them than romanticism. They just could not afford to be alone with no claim on the community and marriages were contracted on this basis. Migrations were community projects and they were kinsmen oriented. The need to preserve wealth and concentrate it in friendly hands may explain why marriages were common among cousins and why there were frequent cases where two brothers married two sisters, and thus brought about the complex social structure which is evident in southern society. People from North Carolina and Tennessee were some of the first settlers of the area Kentucky that became Wayne County in 1801. Evidence points to a gathering together of a number of the families members immediately after they left the Carolinas. It underscores the family-groups moving together into Otter and Beaver Creek. I can visualize the caravans as they gathered, ready to start the trek from North Carolina to Kentucky. They bid their friends and relatives goodbye, hardly expecting ever to see them again. And for this reason the parting was a very solemn one. Parents were leaving their children behind and children were leaving their parents and friends and relatives were being separated. It wasnt long before some of those who were left behind, also came to Kentucky in another migrational group. And it wasnt long before the kinsmen who had stayed in Virginia while members of their families lived in the Carolinas, also joined the migration to Wayne County, Kentucky. We often wonder if the two or three groups of the same family name were related . . . more often than not, they were. Many stayed while others moved on to settle other territories. "there is no one that wanders, but what he wants to wander farther" _________________________________________________________________ Chat with friends online, try MSN Messenger: http://messenger.msn.com