Hi Julie,Ed, Linda, et al........ I cannot imagine more helpful, informative and thoughtful replies to my plea! Thanks VERY much. I'm going to copy this note to the lists for two reasons; first to publicly thank you all, and second, to ask for copies of all migration postings. I'm getting quite a few responses, and unfortunately, have just today dropped from all the rootweb lists, since I'm not going to be able to pick up e-mail for most of May and all of June. I don't want to miss ANY of the messages, so PLEASE COPY ME as well as posting information to the mail lists. I shall post any information I get when I return in July. John Haynes John@Haynes.Net or JHaynesNC@aol.com ========Original Messages======== Subj: Re: [VABEDFOR-L] Migration Routes - Bedford, VA to KY early 1800s Date: 4/28/99 12:00:06 PM Eastern Daylight Time From: ANNIV2776@aol.com Reply-to: ANNIV2776@aol.com To: VABEDFOR-L@rootsweb.com John, I'm sure there are many families from Bedford that traveled the routes you were describing and there just has to be many family historians out there (probably novices, like myself) that are not aware of it yet. I recently "discovered" a small section of the Bedford Gross family who went on to Breckinridge County, Kentucky. There's a great book, "Payne and Associated Families of Breckinridge Co., Ky" by Norman L. Payne which includes Bedford and Franklin Counties and many families that traveled on to Kentucky. No actual routes of migration travelled as far as I can tell right now, but I can give you approximate dates as to when they show up there. Abraham Gross shows up on a deed in March of 1817 in Breckinridge. It looks as if he took some of the family with him but for those who stayed behind, I can now see and understand the family connections, knowing all of this. It's also helping me with leads as to where they may have originally come from because most of these family ties did not just happen once they arrived in Bedford. You mentioned the name PATE and the book says the first known person to move there was Benjamin Allen Pate. What I found most interesting was the observation made between the phone books of Breckinridge and Bedford counties and how they look the same, even today. I think it would be very helpful to so many people if you post as much as you can to the Bedford list as you learn more about this interesting subject. Julie Smith (Researching: Bays, Bohn, Bowyer, Carter, Daugherty, Graham, GROSS, Martin, Minor, Rice, Stanley, Tuck in Bedford Co., Va) ======================================= Subj: [VABEDFOR-L] Migration routes Date: 4/28/99 11:57:38 AM Eastern Daylight Time From: e3p6n5nb@coastalnet.com (Edward Smith) Reply-to: e3p6n5nb@coastalnet.com To: VABEDFOR-L@rootsweb.com In response to John Haynes message: In regards to question 3 in the message: The Wilderness Road did not exist until the dates given below, and even then it was just a trail and presented much difficulty for the passage of wagons. >From a work in progress: “The Transylvania Company immediately hired Daniel Boone to explore the country and open a road from the settlements on the Holston River, over the Blue Ridge Mountains, through the Cumberland Gap, down to the plains of Kentucky to Otter Creek, near a bend in the Kentucky River -- 200 wilderness and mountain miles away. Daniel, his brother Squire Boone and Colonel Richard Callaway were among the thirty odd mounted and armed men who left on March 10, 1775 to blaze the trail. This "Wilderness Road" was properly named. For mile after punishing mile, they felled trees, filled sinkholes, and cut brush and vines as thick as a man's thigh. There were no real difficulties met by the trailblazers until they were about 15 miles from their destination. A surprise attack by Indians under the cover of darkness, resulted in men wounded and killed. Three days after the attack, hunters came upon a young boy, Samuel Tate's son, who told how his camp, at some distant from Boone's, had also been fired into. The little group had foolishly lighted a fire without posting guards and was busy with the usual nightly task of drying moccasins when the Indians shot into them. Two were killed. The rest scattered barefoot through the woods, but the moonlit night and a late fall of April snow made it easy for the Indians to track them down. Samuel Tate himself escaped only by running down an icy stream, still called Tate's Creek in memory of the episode. On the evening of April 1, 1775 the trailblazers reached the site Boone had selected as the capitol for the new colony.” Ed Smith ==================================== Subj: Re: [VABEDFOR-L] Migration Routes - Bedford, VA to KY early 1800s Date: 4/28/99 11:48:32 AM Eastern Daylight Time From: lbnk@worldnet.att.net (Linda Boorom) To: VABEDFOR-L@rootsweb.com John and list, My husband's ancestor Aaron Booram (JR) had arrived at Hamilton Co. (Cinti) OH by Nov. 1801, when he purchased land here. In 1800 he is listed as a tithable in Bedford Co., as well as his father Aaron Booram SR. (Bef. abt. 1790 they are in Loudoun Co. VA). I have often wondered how he traveled from Bedford across the mountains and ended up in OH. I am wondering now if he went across the mountains to what is now Mason Co. WV and the Kanawha River traveled from there via the OHIO River, stopping first to visit his borther John and sister Hannah. I just purchased a book by Edward L. Oldaker titled "The Oldacre/Oldaker Story". Aaron Sr.'s son John had married Tamar Oldaker and a daughter Hannah married Isaac Oldaker (Bedford Co. 1791). Pgs. 39-44 include an article by Mary Week Atkeson titled "The Oldaker Settlement on Eighteen Mile" that was printed in 'The West Virginian Review' March, 1932. The exact date of the settlement is unknown, family history says by 1800, the land being purchased by John Oldaker in 1796. I will briefly summarize the Oldaker's travels to this 'settlement'. "John Oldaker Sr. sent his son William Henry, and his son-in-law, Jacob Henry Harris, with a good team of horses and a wagon to look over the property. There was almost no road down the Kanawha, but they finially managed to get as far as the Pocataligo River, which was so high they could not cross it. So they left the wagon and turned the horses loose, and went on down the Kanawha in a canoe to Eighteen-Mile Creek, and then up to their tract of land." The story goes on to say when the 2 returned for their horses, they could not be found and had to walk home, not reaching 'home' until Christmas. The next season a party returned to 'clear some land and raise a crop' and it wasn't until the 3rd season that the Oldaker families, in-laws, cousins, about 50 altogether, gathered at Franklin Co. with wagons etc. to travel to their new home. According to the book, this land was about 2 miles above where Eighteen Mile Creek flows into the Great Kanawha River at Robertsburg. It doesn't say exactly where they crossed the mountains from Bedford, but there is a description of 'The Kanawha Trace" at www.cob-net.org/docs/brethrenlife_migrations.htm that is of interest. Is there anyone else who left Bedford 1800/01 and ended up in Hamilton Co. OH? Thanks, Linda Boorom ======================================== Subj: RE: [VABEDFOR-L] Migration Routes - Bedford, VA to KY early 1800s Date: 4/28/99 10:42:33 AM Eastern Daylight Time From: GLMccorm@rmc.com (McCormick, Greg L.) To: JHaynesNC@aol.com ('JHaynesNC@aol.com') I know that my g-g-gf and his wife and family left Bedford County in the Spring of 1852, and crossed the Ohio River at Point Pleasant OH, before continuing on west to the area north of Indianapolis IN; that trip was by team-and-wagon and took 55 days. I, too, have tried to figure out their exact route out of VA. Also, I seem to recall that one this g-g-gm's sisters married a Moorman and lived in that same area of IN. ========================== Subj: Re: [VABEDFOR-L] Migration Routes - Bedford, VA to KY early 1800s Date: 4/28/99 11:02:56 AM Eastern Daylight Time From: emarsh@SPC.cc.tx.us (Ed Marsh) To: JHaynesNC@aol.com I can add this. In 1760, William Candler of Bedford County (later of Georgia) contracted with Joseph Ray of Augusta County to bring supplies to the soldiers at Dunkards bottom on the New River (present-day Radford, VA). These soldiers were out there in the wilderness to help stave off residual violence after the so-called French and Indian War. Greenbrier County, VA (later West Virginia) was just being settled in the 1770's -- mostly by people coming down the "Great Wagon Road" from PA. But what of the people who did travel west to these territories rather than coming down from PA? The James River penetrates the Blue Ridge and flows back southwest towards present-day Blacksburg Virginia, and there is a gap through the mountains near present-day Salem which allows access to the Catawba valley. So, people traveling west through the Peaks of Otter and those crossing through more to the south at Salem would end up traveling down the valley then up and over the mountain near Blacksburg. From there they would follow the streams that drained into the New River, cross the New near Radford (either Ingles Ferry or Peppers Ferry), and pick up the "Wilderness Road" which interstate 81 follows roughly today. More if anyone needs it. =========================== Subj: Re: Migration Routes Date: 4/26/99 4:06:22 AM Eastern Daylight Time From: gsdownr@geocities.com (Patrick Hays) To: WEST-CENTRAL-KY-L@rootsweb.com My mother is interested in studying migration routes, and I am starting to do the same. One of our ancestors, Christopher Howard married Elizabeth Reeder in 1811 in Bedford Co., VA. In a deed (will? I can't remember right now), there is a statement made about a bank account in Lynchburg, VA. At any rate Christopher Howard and his family moved from Bedford Co., VA to Breckinridge and Meade Cos., KY. I can not connect them to anybody yet, but if there is a common migration path there may be some keys to who they are. Chrsitopher and Elizabeth Howard were the parents of: William Irvin, Robert White, Elizabeth, Jane Ellen, James Hilary, Sarah, Martha, Harriet, Thomas H., George Edward, John Richard and DeGrafton R. Howard. Most of these moved on to Arkansas or Missouri except James H. who died in 1856 in Hancock Co., and John >Richard< who died in 1903 in Hancock Co. Sorry, but I have absolutely no information about any other Howards at all. Patrick Hays =========================== Subj: MIGRATION ROUTES TO KY Date: 4/27/99 4:22:52 PM Eastern Daylight Time From: donna.chernick@cwixmail.com (Donna Chernick) To: WEST-CENTRAL-KY-L@rootsweb.com Re migration routes to KY Some of my lines also came out of West VA, and VA also. About 1780 they migrated in groups led by William (Indian Bill) Hardin to Jefferson and Nelson Co.'s, KY, and settled in the areas now known as Breckenridge, Hardin and Nelson Co.'s. Their migration route was the Monongahela River to the Ohio, and down the Ohio to The Falls (Jefferson Co. stopping point), then inland. This was a common route of travel in those early days. Donna LINES: BUSH, RADLEY, SEARS - Hardin & Nelson Co., KY late 1700's.