Posted on: Jackson County, WV Bios Reply Here: http://cgi.rootsweb.com/~genbbs/genbbs.cgi/USA/WV/JacksonBios/195 Surname: KNOPP, RICHWEIN, STEWART, MILLER, KYGER, WRIGHT, WIBLIN, FLESHER, CASTO, CARNEY, CAIN, BORD, TALLMAN, BIGLER, WESTFALL, PARSONS ------------------------- This sketch taken from "Pioneers of Jackson County", by John House, it appears in the section "Upper Mill Creek". Knopp Family The ancestors of George Knopp came from Germany to Pennsylvania, where they became incorporated in the host of frugal, industrious Americans, known as "Pennsylvania Dutch", and, like so many of their neighbors, drifted south, into the valley of Virginia. George Knopp was born in the Shenandoah Valley, on July 23rd, 1794, and died on Mill Creek, February 18th, 1855, aged sixty years, five months and eight days. This is the record taken form his tombstone in the Baptist Grove Cemetery, but his son, H. F. Knopp, thinks he was probably several years older. His wife died at the home of one of her children, in Indiana. He married Catharine Richwein, and lived for a time in Meigs County, Ohio, and in Mason County, West Virginia, before moving to Mill Creek, in 1826. When Knopp came to Mill Creek, the country was yet wild and full of game of all kinds. There were three little fields of two or three acres each, cleared, one around the house, one up Little Creek, and one across where the present residence of Mr. Knopp stands. He belled his horses and turned them to the woods, where they fared well on the rich succulent pasturage of wild grasses, pea vines, weeds and "brouse". Sometimes when wanted, they would be found two miles or more out the ridge, between Buffalo and Little Creek, or up the streams from the house. Cattle and sheep and hogs also ran at large. The sheep did not do much good in the earlier years, owing to the ravages of the wolves and bears, and frequently had to be penned in the yard, or against the cabin. Hogs, however, throve wonderfully, notwithstanding the onslaught of the wild beasts. Once or twice a year, the neighbors would try to corral all the hogs in the woods, each marking with his private mark, all the pigs and shoats that were judged to be the offspring of his swine, and in the fall when they were fat with the rich abundance of oak, chestnut, and beechmast, each would drive in and butcher, or shoot in the woods, dress, skin, and pack in anything he could find in his mark. Many hogs, however, annually escaped notice, and the woods was full of wild hogs, which like the game, was accounted the common property of all. Once, while Mrs. Knopp was out hunting her cows, she met in the path in the woods, a large sow, with a brood of little pigs running along before her, while the mother was fighting back a large black dog that sought to levy toll on her family. Mrs. Knopp hollowed at the dog, which, being a wolf and afraid of a human being unless very hardpressed by hunger, bounded away into the forest. George Knopp's children were given according to age: Gideon, married Nancy Stewart, of Reedy, a daughter of Old Billy Stewart. He settled first on his father's farm, where the late Henry Brown lived. He died about 1858. Lucinda, married John Stewart, a brother of Old Billy. She lived on the J. J. Miller farm, below Buffalo, after his death, on the Kyger farm on Reedy, about 1846. Phoebe, married Basil Wright, who lived for a time on his father's farm, near Reedy. William, married Catharine Wiblin, and settled on the Charles C. Casto farm, on Little Creek. Sevilla, married Kelley Flesher. He lived on the Hall farm, on Little Creek, and on the lower part of his father's farm, three quarters of a mile up Left Reedy from the Three Forks. Abraham married Delila Carney, a daughter of Spencer Carney, of Middle Fork of Reedy. Henry Fisher, married Rachel Ann Cain, a daughter of Alfred Cain, of Reedy. Kitty Ann, married Thomas Bord, son of "Sandy" Bord, of Reedy. After his death, she married James Wiblin, and lives on a part of the home place above Henry Knopp's. There was a son, Jesse. He lived on Right Fork Reedy, where Rev. C. E. Tallman now resides. He went west later, as also did Kelley Flesher and William and Abraham Knopp. Henry Knopp was born in 1838, and so is now about sixty eight years old. He lived on the old home farm, where he was born. His father brought the first wagon to the upper Mill Creek Valley. This was about 1833. He remembers when all the hill land and much of the bottoms were standing thick with heavy oak, poplar and walnut timber. He and neighbor boys used, while "sky-larking", of Sundays, to visit the old improvement where peach trees were still bearing in the thickets, as late as 1850. The first teacher he remembers in the old field schools was Henry Bigler, who taught three terms at the schoolhouse near L. Parsons, sometime during the forties. Bigler is remembered by many of the elder people of Mill Creek and Reedy, and was afterward a Mormon elder in Utah. Another teacher he recalls was Clark Westfall, who lived on Frozen Camp. The Knopp family were Democrats in politics and members of the Presbyterian church.