Posted on: Jackson County, WV Bios Reply Here: http://cgi.rootsweb.com/~genbbs/genbbs.cgi/USA/WV/JacksonBios/181 Surname: PICKENS, STUMP, BONTEMPT, BONTO, REYNAUD, RAYNO, LITTLE, RHODES, PARSONS, LYONS, FLINN, EDWARDS, SHEPHERD, HAWK ------------------------- This sketch taken from "Pioneers of Jackson County", by John House, it appears in the section "Middle Sandy Valley". Middle Sandy Valley Cherry Camp is a small stream emptying into Sandy, from the right, about a mile above Crooked Fork. Elijah Pickens lived near its mouth, and some of this descendants own land in that vicinity. There is a large area of flat, or slightly rolling, land, extending from below the mouth of Cherry Camp to the mouth of Mud Run, know as the Mud Run Flats. It is a lovely plateau with its system of water courses, little brooks, some rising in the hills and some wholly within the boundaries of the flat, which may be three quarters of a mile in length, and perhaps a half a mile wide, in the widest place. There are some bottoms along the creek, which are probably of good quality, and each little stream had its miniature bottom, a few rods wide and sloping back to the tops of the "hills" so gently it can scarce be told where bottom ends and hill commences. A remarkably pretty country, to look at, but with a white clay soil of little use for agricultural purposes. Mud Run is about a half mile above Cherry Camp, and also heads against the Left Fork of Sycamore. The first settlers at the mouth of Mud Run was a man named Stump. The name is all I have. As to whence he came, or where he went, none appear to know. The "Sandy Fever" plague may be the solution. The date probably was about 1830. The next stream entering the creek some hundred rods higher up is Trace Fork, so named from an old Indian trail leading from the settlements in Harrison and Lewis Counties, by way of Shade River, to the Indian towns on the Scioto. A short distance above the mouth, on a kind of plateau, is the house of Peter Bontempt, built four or five years ago. Near it is a row of four very large apple trees, which may be the remnant of a "pioneer" orchard. Just above, on the left, in the mouth of a small run, is the old Bonto house, built of heavy hewn logs, with cut stone cellar, but the old folks passed to the Great Beyond, and the old buildings are falling before the ravages of time. Bonto (Bontempt is the original spelling), like Raynaud (Rayno), who lived below, was of French descent. The first settler on the Bonto farm was Robert Little, who died of "Sandy Fever", in 1858. He was (said Mrs. Rhodes) there in 1836. George Parsons settled the next place above Little's, about 1830. The site of his cabin I have not been able to make out. There are two old orchards on the place now, one on a point across the road from the house, and a little below, the other about two hundred yards lower down the creek, and on the opposite side, in a bottom cut off by a bend in the stream. There is no sign of a house there now, but at the upper site, there is an old house on the bank above the road, among some trees. If either orchard dates back to the first settlement, it is probably the lower one. George Parsons died about 1838. His wife was Sarah Lyons (See Mill Creek History). His son, George Parsons, died on lower Trace Fork a few years ago. Another son, Charles Parsons, was the father of J. W. Parsons, some time assessor of the first District, and Isaiah Parsons a former County Superintendent. Charles Parsons lived on the home place, some say. His sister, Mrs. Rhodes said he moved to Charleston. Another son, Fielding Parsons, was a Union soldier, and died at Ravenswood three or four years ago. A Flinn lived on the Parsons place afterwards. The next improvement was made, as nearly as can be ascertained, by a man named Edwards, who took a lease and built a cabin across the road, next the creek, from where Mack Shepherd now lives. There was a Lewis Edwards, a skillful carpenter, who lived at different places along Sandy before the war, who was probably the same man. He was not a land owner, but rented and worked at his trade. It is not mentioned who owned the land at that time, but it was a part of the same farm now owned by Frank Hawk.