| News and information for Lewis County, Kentucky! |
Stories of the Fuqua family, on Tygart's Creek;
Excellent history books
By William M. Talley
(use the "Contact Us" form to comment on Dr. Talley's columns)
Recently, my good friend and fellow-researcher, Bruce E. King, of SIU (beking4@gmail.com) sent me an
impressive collection of documents relating to the Fuqua and King families, which lived in early days
near the mouth of Tygart's Creek, and west of Greenup.
The content of these documents has been taken from some of the writings of James Keyes, who
published a series of articles on Greenup and Lewis Counties, in the Portsmouth Times, in the 1870s.
Some of you may recall his colorful description of life at Esculapia Springs during its heyday, published
in this column several years ago.
Mr. Keyes wrote in a clear, vividly descriptive manner and his style gripped the reader after the first
paragraph. He once wrote in one of his articles that history is not just a recitation of facts but the good
history must embellish the facts in a description of the family, social, economic, and cultural life of the
people being discussed and the times of which we write. We are not able to print the full content of the
articles this week, but we shall cover the King family next week. I am not able to write with the
precision and artfulness with Keyes' deftness of pen, so I shall have to summarize as well as I can.
Keep in mind that these families (Fuqua and King) were closely related to some Lewis County families,
namely, Bruce, Elliott, Greenhow and Bragg and were very much involved in this county's history as
well as that of Greenup County.
Moses Fuqua Sr.
One of the earliest settlers in Greenup County opposite Portsmouth, Ohio, was Moses Fuqua who
came there from Virginia in the 1790s with his family, his slaves, and tools for farming.
In his old age, he decided to settle his estate before his death. After selling his personal property, Mr.
Fuqua divided his slaves and landed estate among his children and planned to live with them the rest
of his days. The homestead where he lived was given to a Mr. Benjamin Cook, a wealthy Virginian who
had married his oldest daughter, Sarah "Sallie" Fuqua, and was living near Lynchburg, Virginia. The
Fuqua children were mystified and a bit annoyed as to why their father had given the farm to Mr. Cook
instead of dividing it among all his children. Finally, Mr. Cook, as we shall see, gave this farm to his
daughter, Nancy Cook, who married Thomas B. King.
King and his family came and took possession of the property in the spring of 1812. The marriage was a
very romantic one, but one which greatly worried and disturbed Nancy's father because he felt that she
was marrying out of her social level, which was a greatly important matter in those days.
The Fuquas belonged to what was called the "First Families of Virginia", and were well educated,
refined and cultured. Cook did not feel that King was a social equal to his daughter. Mr. Keyes states
that things became very awkward at mealtime because everything had to be done according to a
certain form and those who had not learned these rules came to feel very uncomfortable. These
families were not particularly offensive to other people but they manifested a certain degree of
exclusivity, one of them being in their traditions of marriage. They frequently married among their
blood relations. It was very common for first cousins to marry and even more common for those a bit
more distant to marry. This was calculated to keep wealth and culture within the family.
Furthermore, most of these families adhered to a strict pattern of naming their children, so that some
names such as Moses or Judith became very common in the branches of the family; this tradition
becoming a part of their social identity.
Moses Fuqua was born in 1740 and his wife was born in 1742 and they were married in 1760. They had a
number of children and Mr. Fuqua owned many slaves. He served as a captain in the Revolutionary
War that came shortly after he reached 21.
Moses Fuqua became interested in acquiring lands in Kentucky after the Treaty of Greenville. In 1795,
Indian attacks had become less common in the Ohio Valley and emigrants from Virginia were filling up
the area. In 1797 or 1798, Moses Fuqua sent his youngest son, Moses Fuqua Jr., to locate land in
Kentucky for a home. Moses came to the Portsmouth area where he stopped at the house of John
Collins at Alexandria [just below Portsmouth]. Collins acquainted him with the rich bottom lands across
the river in Kentucky and young Moses selected a tract of land comprising several hundred acres
about two miles along the Ohio River above the mouth of Tygart's Creek.
When he returned to Virginia, the family immediately made preparations to move, which was not an
easy task those days because it involved hauling a family and all their belongings across the Allegheny
Mountains where there were no roads. They reached their home sometime around 1799. Mr. Fuqua was
then about 60 years of age. He had left his comfortable home in Virginia to begin a new home in the
wilderness [then known as Mason County, Kentucky. The county of Greenup was formed in 1803].
Fuqua's large group of slaves set to work subduing the forests, fencing extensive fields, planting
orchards, building houses, etc. Mr. Keyes says that by 1810, 200 acres had been cleared and they had
built an old Virginia style home. It was a commodious brick residence, two stories high surrounded with
a large apple orchard, two or three peach orchards, and pears and other fruit in abundance. Huge
weeping willows surrounded the house and, in that day, willows were considered indispensable as
shade trees. There was also a large garden, containing an acre or more filled with vegetables and
flowers. His place fulfilled the prediction of the poet Humphrey who said of the western country: "The
wilderness must be able to blossom with the rose."
Several of Mr. Fuqua's children came and settled near him about the same time. Josiah Morton, an old
Revolutionary War veteran, who married one of Fuqua's daughters, settled below the mouth of Tygart's
Creek. John Mackoy, who married another daughter, settled opposite the mouth of Hale's Creek. He
likewise had two sons who brought their families to Greenup County. One settled on Tygart's and the
other on the Ohio opposite the mouth of Little Scioto. The youngest son, Moses Fuqua Jr., married a
daughter of Judge Collins, who lived in Alexandria.
Mr. Fuqua had one young Black man, named Charles, who was always in some mischief or other, such
as killing young ducks and geese, destroying property of various kinds. He was whipped every time
when caught in his mischief, yet it seemed to do no good. He had a propensity for hunting and would
steal a gun every opportunity and take to the woods to have a day's hunt. As he was generally
successful, and brought his game home with him, he was allowed to pass with impunity.
They finally gave him a gun and ammunition and sent him a hunting. He supplied the family, which was
numerous, with all the wild game they could consume. In this way they not only made him useful, but
what was better, they got clear of his mischievous tricks on the farm.
Charles was an uncommonly intelligent young man. In the distribution of property he fell to the share of
Moses Fuqua Jr. [i.e., inherited by young Moses]. Mr. Keyes says that in after years he had heard
Charles relate his boyish pranks with great satisfaction.
It was in the spring of 1811 that Mr. Fuqua made the disposition of his estate. At that time he was
getting old and nearly blind. William Price was appointed to auction the estate. It is interesting to know
that Price owned the land where Sciotoville now stands.
One of the items disposed of was a set of spoon moulds. Spoons may not seem important to us but all
eating utensils were important to the people of those days. William Price, the auctioneer, bid on the
spoon mould and took them home with him. Pewter spoons did not last long in a large family. The
handles would become bent or broken, they would melt in hot grease, and many were lost over a
period of time. In large families, only part of the family could eat at "first table" because there was not
enough cutlery for everybody to eat at once.
After Mr. Price acquired the spoon moulds he gave every person in the neighborhood leave to come
to his house and remold their pewter spoons, Mr. Price furnishing the ladle and the fire.
A pewter spoon mould would not seem very important to us but in those days before various other
metals were used for eating utensils, pewter, a soft metal mixture, was used for plates, bowls, forks,
spoons, etc., and they did not last very long. Only the extremely wealthy could afford silver spoons and
forks.
It was the custom in those early days before meetinghouses or school houses were built, to hold
meetings in the woods in the summer time, under the shade of the trees, seated on logs, or on the
ground, as might be most convenient. These meetings were largely attended, and people both white
and black, came from a very considerable distance to attend these outdoor meetings. Those who were
religiously inclined would gather in groups near the preacher's group. Others, who were not so pious,
would gather in groups just out of sight of the preacher's group, and indulge in conversation. In these
places, it is said, that Charles (the slave boy) was heard to relate his boyish pranks and hunting stories,
much to his friends' satisfaction, and which were understood much better than the preaching.
(Next week we shall publish the history of the Thomas B. King family.)
Two outstanding books
Recently I have read two excellent books relating to the decade or so before the onset of the American
Revolution.
The first book is titled Grand Avenues: The story of the French visionary who designed Washington, D.C.,
by Scott W. Berg. I had known since childhood that Pierre L'Enfant had "laid out" Washington, D. C., but
I never knew much about him or all the problems involved in planning the city.
L'Enfant found himself happy with his relationship with George Washington, but many of the persons
who made up the committees or the board of commissioners bickered over everything, for example,
whether the city should be laid out on a grid like Philadelphia, why was this Frenchman laying out roads
through swamps, how could they develop parks or monuments in what was then the tidal basin of the
Potomac, not to mention the scarcity of money and the resistance many people had for the location
selection. Some felt it was chosen simply to please George Washington whose home was within a few
miles.
L'Enfant dealt with it all, sometimes with a great deal of impatience, sometimes with pride, and
sometimes attributing it to the ignorance of those who had never seen the beauty of Paris which he
was attempting to embody in the city's design, including the reflecting pool and streets extending from
circles.
L'Enfant was a temperamental little fellow who felt that he had been overworked and underpaid, and
that others had taken credit for his ideas. He chose the exact site of the Capitol and the White House.
Pierre L'Enfant was impoverished in his last years and lived in the home of the Digges family (Green
Hill). He died on June 15, 1825, almost 71 years of age. He was buried in a grave near the servants and
slaves of the Digges family with no marker. It would be over 75 years before anyone made any effort to
move his grave. When they dug up his grave they found only some green mould, a tooth and a belt
buckle. They scooped up these remains, put them in a nice casket, and buried him with great honor in
Arlington Cemetery just a few yards from the porch of the Lee House.
The second book I found informative, well-referenced, and containing excellent maps is Benedict
Arnold's Navy: The ragtag fleet that lost the battle of Lake Champlain but won the American Revolution, by
James L. Nelson. While reading much of this book I felt disappointed that I was not able to read such a
scholarly book before leaving Montreal and the Champlain valley.
Benedict Arnold, contrary to later evaluations of his career, fought hard for the freedom of this
country, but he, like L'Enfant, became irritated with all the quarreling, lack of funds, countermanded
orders and shrinking numbers of soldiers.
Perhaps the most interesting part of the book is Arnold's attempt to seize Quebec City. Even though
Wolfe and his men were able to scale the stone cliffs of Quebec City in the French and Indian War,
Arnold and his men could not endure the cold, the rain, and the ice long enough to climb the walls.
They had been expecting the French-Canadians to ally themselves with the colonials of America, but
they chose not to change their support and stayed loyal to the British because the British had
guaranteed their use of the French language, worship of the Catholic religion, and numerous other
privileges. When Arnold and others approached Montreal they met considerable resistance, even
though Benjamin Franklin and others had been there to attempt to persuade them to change their
opinion. Arnold then moved his sphere of action to Ticonderoga, Crown Point and Lake Champlain.
The most exciting part of the book is the section dealing with the Battle of Valcour Island, just a short
distance south of Plattsburgh, New York. This battle took place in mid-October 1776. When I used to
visit the lodge at Valcour Island there was a wonderful restaurant on the shore of the lake that
presented a panoramic view of that island where the patriots fought such a fierce battle. As I read the
book, I thought how much I had missed by not knowing at that time all that had happened in 1776 just a
few yards from my table.
Excellent history books
By William M. Talley
(use the "Contact Us" form to comment on Dr. Talley's columns)
Recently, my good friend and fellow-researcher, Bruce E. King, of SIU (beking4@gmail.com) sent me an
impressive collection of documents relating to the Fuqua and King families, which lived in early days
near the mouth of Tygart's Creek, and west of Greenup.
The content of these documents has been taken from some of the writings of James Keyes, who
published a series of articles on Greenup and Lewis Counties, in the Portsmouth Times, in the 1870s.
Some of you may recall his colorful description of life at Esculapia Springs during its heyday, published
in this column several years ago.
Mr. Keyes wrote in a clear, vividly descriptive manner and his style gripped the reader after the first
paragraph. He once wrote in one of his articles that history is not just a recitation of facts but the good
history must embellish the facts in a description of the family, social, economic, and cultural life of the
people being discussed and the times of which we write. We are not able to print the full content of the
articles this week, but we shall cover the King family next week. I am not able to write with the
precision and artfulness with Keyes' deftness of pen, so I shall have to summarize as well as I can.
Keep in mind that these families (Fuqua and King) were closely related to some Lewis County families,
namely, Bruce, Elliott, Greenhow and Bragg and were very much involved in this county's history as
well as that of Greenup County.
Moses Fuqua Sr.
One of the earliest settlers in Greenup County opposite Portsmouth, Ohio, was Moses Fuqua who
came there from Virginia in the 1790s with his family, his slaves, and tools for farming.
In his old age, he decided to settle his estate before his death. After selling his personal property, Mr.
Fuqua divided his slaves and landed estate among his children and planned to live with them the rest
of his days. The homestead where he lived was given to a Mr. Benjamin Cook, a wealthy Virginian who
had married his oldest daughter, Sarah "Sallie" Fuqua, and was living near Lynchburg, Virginia. The
Fuqua children were mystified and a bit annoyed as to why their father had given the farm to Mr. Cook
instead of dividing it among all his children. Finally, Mr. Cook, as we shall see, gave this farm to his
daughter, Nancy Cook, who married Thomas B. King.
King and his family came and took possession of the property in the spring of 1812. The marriage was a
very romantic one, but one which greatly worried and disturbed Nancy's father because he felt that she
was marrying out of her social level, which was a greatly important matter in those days.
The Fuquas belonged to what was called the "First Families of Virginia", and were well educated,
refined and cultured. Cook did not feel that King was a social equal to his daughter. Mr. Keyes states
that things became very awkward at mealtime because everything had to be done according to a
certain form and those who had not learned these rules came to feel very uncomfortable. These
families were not particularly offensive to other people but they manifested a certain degree of
exclusivity, one of them being in their traditions of marriage. They frequently married among their
blood relations. It was very common for first cousins to marry and even more common for those a bit
more distant to marry. This was calculated to keep wealth and culture within the family.
Furthermore, most of these families adhered to a strict pattern of naming their children, so that some
names such as Moses or Judith became very common in the branches of the family; this tradition
becoming a part of their social identity.
Moses Fuqua was born in 1740 and his wife was born in 1742 and they were married in 1760. They had a
number of children and Mr. Fuqua owned many slaves. He served as a captain in the Revolutionary
War that came shortly after he reached 21.
Moses Fuqua became interested in acquiring lands in Kentucky after the Treaty of Greenville. In 1795,
Indian attacks had become less common in the Ohio Valley and emigrants from Virginia were filling up
the area. In 1797 or 1798, Moses Fuqua sent his youngest son, Moses Fuqua Jr., to locate land in
Kentucky for a home. Moses came to the Portsmouth area where he stopped at the house of John
Collins at Alexandria [just below Portsmouth]. Collins acquainted him with the rich bottom lands across
the river in Kentucky and young Moses selected a tract of land comprising several hundred acres
about two miles along the Ohio River above the mouth of Tygart's Creek.
When he returned to Virginia, the family immediately made preparations to move, which was not an
easy task those days because it involved hauling a family and all their belongings across the Allegheny
Mountains where there were no roads. They reached their home sometime around 1799. Mr. Fuqua was
then about 60 years of age. He had left his comfortable home in Virginia to begin a new home in the
wilderness [then known as Mason County, Kentucky. The county of Greenup was formed in 1803].
Fuqua's large group of slaves set to work subduing the forests, fencing extensive fields, planting
orchards, building houses, etc. Mr. Keyes says that by 1810, 200 acres had been cleared and they had
built an old Virginia style home. It was a commodious brick residence, two stories high surrounded with
a large apple orchard, two or three peach orchards, and pears and other fruit in abundance. Huge
weeping willows surrounded the house and, in that day, willows were considered indispensable as
shade trees. There was also a large garden, containing an acre or more filled with vegetables and
flowers. His place fulfilled the prediction of the poet Humphrey who said of the western country: "The
wilderness must be able to blossom with the rose."
Several of Mr. Fuqua's children came and settled near him about the same time. Josiah Morton, an old
Revolutionary War veteran, who married one of Fuqua's daughters, settled below the mouth of Tygart's
Creek. John Mackoy, who married another daughter, settled opposite the mouth of Hale's Creek. He
likewise had two sons who brought their families to Greenup County. One settled on Tygart's and the
other on the Ohio opposite the mouth of Little Scioto. The youngest son, Moses Fuqua Jr., married a
daughter of Judge Collins, who lived in Alexandria.
Mr. Fuqua had one young Black man, named Charles, who was always in some mischief or other, such
as killing young ducks and geese, destroying property of various kinds. He was whipped every time
when caught in his mischief, yet it seemed to do no good. He had a propensity for hunting and would
steal a gun every opportunity and take to the woods to have a day's hunt. As he was generally
successful, and brought his game home with him, he was allowed to pass with impunity.
They finally gave him a gun and ammunition and sent him a hunting. He supplied the family, which was
numerous, with all the wild game they could consume. In this way they not only made him useful, but
what was better, they got clear of his mischievous tricks on the farm.
Charles was an uncommonly intelligent young man. In the distribution of property he fell to the share of
Moses Fuqua Jr. [i.e., inherited by young Moses]. Mr. Keyes says that in after years he had heard
Charles relate his boyish pranks with great satisfaction.
It was in the spring of 1811 that Mr. Fuqua made the disposition of his estate. At that time he was
getting old and nearly blind. William Price was appointed to auction the estate. It is interesting to know
that Price owned the land where Sciotoville now stands.
One of the items disposed of was a set of spoon moulds. Spoons may not seem important to us but all
eating utensils were important to the people of those days. William Price, the auctioneer, bid on the
spoon mould and took them home with him. Pewter spoons did not last long in a large family. The
handles would become bent or broken, they would melt in hot grease, and many were lost over a
period of time. In large families, only part of the family could eat at "first table" because there was not
enough cutlery for everybody to eat at once.
After Mr. Price acquired the spoon moulds he gave every person in the neighborhood leave to come
to his house and remold their pewter spoons, Mr. Price furnishing the ladle and the fire.
A pewter spoon mould would not seem very important to us but in those days before various other
metals were used for eating utensils, pewter, a soft metal mixture, was used for plates, bowls, forks,
spoons, etc., and they did not last very long. Only the extremely wealthy could afford silver spoons and
forks.
It was the custom in those early days before meetinghouses or school houses were built, to hold
meetings in the woods in the summer time, under the shade of the trees, seated on logs, or on the
ground, as might be most convenient. These meetings were largely attended, and people both white
and black, came from a very considerable distance to attend these outdoor meetings. Those who were
religiously inclined would gather in groups near the preacher's group. Others, who were not so pious,
would gather in groups just out of sight of the preacher's group, and indulge in conversation. In these
places, it is said, that Charles (the slave boy) was heard to relate his boyish pranks and hunting stories,
much to his friends' satisfaction, and which were understood much better than the preaching.
(Next week we shall publish the history of the Thomas B. King family.)
Two outstanding books
Recently I have read two excellent books relating to the decade or so before the onset of the American
Revolution.
The first book is titled Grand Avenues: The story of the French visionary who designed Washington, D.C.,
by Scott W. Berg. I had known since childhood that Pierre L'Enfant had "laid out" Washington, D. C., but
I never knew much about him or all the problems involved in planning the city.
L'Enfant found himself happy with his relationship with George Washington, but many of the persons
who made up the committees or the board of commissioners bickered over everything, for example,
whether the city should be laid out on a grid like Philadelphia, why was this Frenchman laying out roads
through swamps, how could they develop parks or monuments in what was then the tidal basin of the
Potomac, not to mention the scarcity of money and the resistance many people had for the location
selection. Some felt it was chosen simply to please George Washington whose home was within a few
miles.
L'Enfant dealt with it all, sometimes with a great deal of impatience, sometimes with pride, and
sometimes attributing it to the ignorance of those who had never seen the beauty of Paris which he
was attempting to embody in the city's design, including the reflecting pool and streets extending from
circles.
L'Enfant was a temperamental little fellow who felt that he had been overworked and underpaid, and
that others had taken credit for his ideas. He chose the exact site of the Capitol and the White House.
Pierre L'Enfant was impoverished in his last years and lived in the home of the Digges family (Green
Hill). He died on June 15, 1825, almost 71 years of age. He was buried in a grave near the servants and
slaves of the Digges family with no marker. It would be over 75 years before anyone made any effort to
move his grave. When they dug up his grave they found only some green mould, a tooth and a belt
buckle. They scooped up these remains, put them in a nice casket, and buried him with great honor in
Arlington Cemetery just a few yards from the porch of the Lee House.
The second book I found informative, well-referenced, and containing excellent maps is Benedict
Arnold's Navy: The ragtag fleet that lost the battle of Lake Champlain but won the American Revolution, by
James L. Nelson. While reading much of this book I felt disappointed that I was not able to read such a
scholarly book before leaving Montreal and the Champlain valley.
Benedict Arnold, contrary to later evaluations of his career, fought hard for the freedom of this
country, but he, like L'Enfant, became irritated with all the quarreling, lack of funds, countermanded
orders and shrinking numbers of soldiers.
Perhaps the most interesting part of the book is Arnold's attempt to seize Quebec City. Even though
Wolfe and his men were able to scale the stone cliffs of Quebec City in the French and Indian War,
Arnold and his men could not endure the cold, the rain, and the ice long enough to climb the walls.
They had been expecting the French-Canadians to ally themselves with the colonials of America, but
they chose not to change their support and stayed loyal to the British because the British had
guaranteed their use of the French language, worship of the Catholic religion, and numerous other
privileges. When Arnold and others approached Montreal they met considerable resistance, even
though Benjamin Franklin and others had been there to attempt to persuade them to change their
opinion. Arnold then moved his sphere of action to Ticonderoga, Crown Point and Lake Champlain.
The most exciting part of the book is the section dealing with the Battle of Valcour Island, just a short
distance south of Plattsburgh, New York. This battle took place in mid-October 1776. When I used to
visit the lodge at Valcour Island there was a wonderful restaurant on the shore of the lake that
presented a panoramic view of that island where the patriots fought such a fierce battle. As I read the
book, I thought how much I had missed by not knowing at that time all that had happened in 1776 just a
few yards from my table.