Volume II (listed in a separate listing) takes the history of Clinton County, Kentucky up to the opening of the Civil War.  Volume III carries that history through the years of the Civil War and up to the beginning of the 20th century.  Amazingly complete genealogy and history of families who became the foundation of the county in southcentral Kentucky.

My Dad was the storyteller to my friends and siblings when we were young.  He loved to tell us stories such as the time he slept in a haystack with bears.  As a young man in the CCC working in Oregon, he was hitchhiking to California when night fell and he was very tired.  He found a haystack on a farm and took refuge and warmth on a stranger's farm.  He fell asleep along with the pigs who also curled up in the haystack that night.  The next morning, he went to the farmhouse and approached the farmer.  He asked if he could have a bite to eat and told him he had slept in his haystack with his pigs to keep warm.  The old farmer looked at him and said Son, the bears ate my pigs months ago.  So, did he really sleep with bears?  That's the story he told us and it just may be true!

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From my Dad, the storyteller, Early Times in Clinton County not only offers unbelievable genealogical information, but historical stories such as the following:

The First School in Clinton County

One of the characteristics of the Kentucky pioneer has always been a desire for the promotion of education and the settlers of Clinton County were no exception. It is instructive to note that the first school house in the county was built before the first church building was erected. This was the Clear Fork school, organized in 1799 by Rev. Isaac Denton, Thomas Stockton, Sr., George Smith, and others. It was built complete in one day from round green logs cut nearby. The seats were split logs, the split sides being turned up, with short saplings inserted in augur holes in the bottom part for legs. A split slab taken through a dressing process with a broad axe, with legs of the same size as those of the seats, served as a writing desk. Patrons of the school united in paying a salary to the teacher, who commonly boarded around about in the neighborhood.

We do not have the name of the first teacher of this pioneer school; however from the records that have come down to us it would seem that the early settlers were not too fortunate in their choice. He was an uncouth Irishman who had drifted on some chance tide to the backwoods. His unfitness for business and his aversion to any kind of labor forced him by necessity to fall back upon some trade such as teaching for a living. Lazy and illiterate, he was in fact too ignorant for even the rough unlettered backwoodsmen around him. He was besides a slave to drink, and often he would gather school but becoming too drunk to teach, would sit or lie in a drunken stupor while the school children had a boisterous holiday around him. One day he stood up before the school and bantered the school children to give him some problem in arithmetic which he could not solve. Young John Smith, whose burning desire for education was rapidly turning to disgust, asked him: Master, how many grains of corn would it take to make a square foot of mush? The youngster took a special delight in pestering the would-be educator. One day while he slept in a drunken condition, young John took a shovel full of hot burning embers from the fire and poured them into the large open pocket of the teacher's linsey coat. The rest of the children stood aghast at the deed, then seizing their books they fled to the woods. The schoolteacher slept on until the smoke of his burning coat awoke him. In a rage he reported the matter to John's father, but the settlers had had enough of him; one of them, getting the articles of agreement into his hands the next day, burned it. The school was at an end, having lasted only three weeks. The pseudo-schoolteacher soon left the neighborhood and was seen in Stockton's Valley no more.

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I am listing Volume II and Volume III - Volume I is completely sold out and no longer available.  

The Details

Dimensions (approximate:) 11 1/4" x 8 1/2" 356 pages 

Marks:  (Copyright) 2003/Jack Ferguson, Albany, Kentucky...

Condition:   New, First Edition

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