The Colliers

The blog is acting up. It is doubling pictures and adding lots of spaces between paragraphs. I am going to once more remove them, but I cannot guarantee that they won't be there when I push the publish button.

This is a nutshell view of the Colliers as I have them.

The oldest Collier I have is Isaac who was born about 1718 and married Mary Gaines who was born in 1720. They had a son named Michael who was born about 1738 and married an Elizabeth. Michael and Elizabeth had a son on January 8, 1764 named Daniel.

Daniel married Elizabeth Prather born December 9, 1769. She was the daughter of James Prather. They had a son Richard on May 9, 1789. He married Matthew Caudill and Sarah Webb's daughter, Mary Caudill.

Richard and Mary married on August 30, 1832. They had a daughter, Elizabeth, in 1833.

In the 1850 census for Letcher county they are listed as:

Collier, Richard, 53

Mary 49

Stephen 16

William 15

Samuel 12

Sally 11.

Stephen married Elizabeth "Betsy Ann" Roark. They had these children: Richard (married Mary Bell Cook), James, Martha and Jamie.

William Dee "Willie" Collier married twice. First, he married Rebecca Meade, daughter of Thomas Kronis Meade and Mary "Polly" Hall. In the 1860 census he and Rebecca are living with his parents Richard and Mary:

Colier, Richard, 68, farm laborer

Mary 58

William 25, farm laborer

Rebecca 22 (William's wife Rebecca Meade)

Mary 5, grandchild

Robert 3, grandchild

Willis 1, grandchild

Meade, Catherine 24 (Rebecca Meade's sister)

Christener 4 (Catherine's child)

Martha 1 (Catherine's child)

Mary the 5 year old is Mary Matilda "Polly" Collier who was born April 30, 1855. She married Andrew "Little Andy" Wright who was killed in a shootout when he and other Wright relatives and William Pardue went to arrest Elijah Wright. After Little Andy's death she married Alexander Wright and then Wilburn Reedy.

The grandchild Robert who was 3 was born May 15,1858. He married Martha Yonts.

The grandchild Willis who was 1 was born April 22, 1859 as Willis Kirk Collier. He first married on September 18, 1885 to Mary Ellen Adams daughter of William Green Adams and Mary "Polly" Webb. She died in April of 1889. On May 5, 1890 Willis took Elizabeth "Lizzie" Vanover daughter of William and Elizabeth Vanover as his second wife.

Willis had three children with Mary: Wilburn "Wibby", Sadie and James Harrison. Sadie was Otho Bentley's first wife.

Willis had ten children with Elizabeth: Arnettie "Nettie", Mazie Frances, Milton M., Florence, Ireland Drew, Carrie, Ira F., Howard M., William and Delphia Jane.

I can't find Richard and Mary in the 1870 census yet. William Dee and Rebecca are there under a spelling of Colier.

Going on with Richard and Mary's children Samuel P. Collier married Martha Roark, probably a sister to Stephen's wife Elizabeth Roark. I haven't done any work on the Roarks to confirm this. Samuel and Martha had 8 children: William Wesley "Bill", Lizzie, Mary, Peter, Richard, James, Martha and Enoch Irvin.

Richard and Mary's youngest child, Sarah "Sally" married Robert C. Meade. They had 8 children: Mary "Polly", Nancy, Siletha, Riley, Rebecca, Samuel, Arminda and Martha.

The reason I wanted to try to sketch out the Colliers is because so many of them are in the Houston Cemetery at Goose Creek.

W. D. Collier

I don't know if this is William Dee Collier. It says W. D. Collier. It was clear at the graveyard. I can't make it out clearly on film. I should have chalked it so it would have read clearly.

Willis Kirk Collier 1859 - 1943

It says Rev. W. K. Collier July 23, 1859 May 8 1943. At the bottom that says "In Memory of Howard Collier." His son, Howard, did not die until 1971, so it is probable that this marker was not placed until after that time.

Florence Collier Hall 1898 - 1922

Florence was the daughter of Willis Kirk Collier and Elizabeth "Lizzie" Vanover, She was the half-sister of Sadie Collier Bentley. She was born on July 22, 1898 in Letcher County. She married John Henry Hall on February 21, 1916. They had two children: Rhoda and Ford. John Henry died on March 17, 1924. In the 1930 census the two children are living with their grandparents: Rhoda with Willis Kirk & Lizzie Vanover Collier and Ford with is widowed grandmother, Nancy Elizabeth Anderson Hall. Jim Hall had died in 1929.

Carrie Collier 1903 - 1920

Carrie was the daughter of Willis Kirk Collier and Elizabeth "Lizzie" Vanover. She was a half-sister to Sadie Collier Bentley. I could not find a death certificate for Carrie.

Sarah Collier Yonts 1886 - 1967

Robert Collier was Willis Kirk Collier's older brother. He married Martha Yonts, daughter of Solomon & Frances Whitaker Yonts. This is the grave of Robert and Martha's daughter, Sarah. Sarah was born August 6, 1886 at Neon. She married John Quiller Yonts, the son of Solomon "Sollie" Yonts and Virginia "Jennie" Quillen. They had five children: Luther, Quilva, Marcus, Martha and Gladys. John died in 1950 and was buried at Goose Creek. If Sarah lies beside him, he is in a grave marked only with a rock and the head and foot.

Arthur Denton Collier 1909-1909

I can't figure this one out. I have no birth or death record for him. I don't know who he belongs to.


Robert Collier 1899 - 1926

Again I can't figure this one out.

5,000 Attend Adams-Craft-Webb Reunion in 1937

While I am waiting for my laptop to be returned I have been going through the 350 news clippings that I found which mention James Taylor Adams name in them. I haven't found another on our family members. Some are interesting stories, but not the kind of thing I write about or would include here. I found this little clipping that I thought was interesting. Where in the world would you hold a reunion in Mayking that 5,000 people could attend?

Middlesboro Daily News
Middlesboro, Kentucky
July 12, 1937, page 5

5000 Present for Reunion

Jenkins, Ky. – Nearly 5,000 persons trekked to Mayking Sunday for the old Adams-Craft-Webb reunion. The families are three of the oldest in the mountains, whose ancestors made the first settlements in Eastern Kentucky.

Dr. Wily J. Adams, Oklahoma City, Okla., was one of those present who came from a distance to honor the families.

Dr. Adams responded to the address of welcome by Prof. Watson Webb. Dr. Joseph D. Webb, Lexington; James Taylor Adams, Big Laurel, Va., and Prof Kearney Adams of Richmond State Normal spoke on the family histories. Dr. Adams gave data on the first John Adams buried in old cemetery here. Others traced the career of BenjaminWebb, first of the Webb family, a Revolutionary War hero and descendant of Daniel Boone.

Many counties of Kentucky were represented at the reunion.

Gramma Kilt a Bar at Age 17

Got a couple of comments about Benjamin and Millie. Benjamin is believed and Millie not so much. LOL

Well, if that were one big old hungry and frustrated at not getting that hog bear and someone bonked me on the head with a frying pan, then I believe I would be enraged enough to turn around and swipe the heck out of the person with that cast iron. I would probably have taken it from them and beat them senseless. But then I would be a bear and I probably would have just killed the person instead of the hog. Now maybe it was just a baby bear. Usually there is a grain of truth to stories like that. I would imagine that I would not be suprised to find the bear was one dragging along a bear trap, dazed from being stung by a thousand bees and hung up in the fence trying to get at that mouth watering pork.

So do I believe totally? Nah, but I love the story. And I love finding out something besides my g-g-g-g Grandmother's name.

When I find clippings of stories like this, I do want to present them the way they were originally published. I could copy and paste the clippings, but they are very difficult to read, so I just transcribed the. I try to preserve them as they were written but sometimes I can't help but correct spelling (which was probably just a typsetting error), but I really try to do them exactly as written.

I have found 347 clippins with James Taylor Adams in them. So far three have been about family members. James was a very interesting fellow himself so part of the clippings are his obituary, his withdrawal from the Wise County Sheriff's office race in the 1930's and his announcements of forthcoming reunions, historical society meetings and things which happened to him.

I think James Taylor Adams is a gold mine.

Appalachian Tale By James Taylor Adams

This article is printed from the story in the Kingsport Times, Kingsport, Tennessee on page 32 published November 26, 1950.

When I was eleven my mother married, as her second husband, a man named Jesse Adams, an old fellow -- up around eighty. The folks, round about, spoke of him as "Colly Jess" because he lived on the head of a stream called Crafts Colly and also to distinguish him from the three or four other Jesse Adamses in that immediate section. Genealogically speaking , he was a
second cousin - uncle to my father, Joseph Adams. I was fond of the old man and treated him with all respect due his step-fatherly position and age; but I could never bring myself to call him father, daddy, pap, or anything like that. I referred to him as he, him, or the old man; and addressed him personally, simply as you.

The old man, when he was a young man and first married, had built himself a two-pen story-and-a-half, log house. There he had reared a large family of sons and daughters; and there he had lived for fifty-nine years, busy from star to star, with never the time to floor and otherwise finish the broad hallway between the two pens of the big house; nor had he ever found time to build a stairway from the ground floor to the loft or upstairs, depending on a rickety ladder, set against the wall of the living room, to reach the skuttle hole, leading to the big, unfinished room above, used to store foodstuffs and a half century's accumulation of plunder.

One day, when no one was home but the old man and me, I climbed the ladder and explored the loft; and there, neatly stacked on the open joists, I found a dozen or so of the most beautiful black walnut boards I had ever seen. Most were twelve inches wide and eight feet long, but there were two
pieces that were all of 18 inches across and just bout two feet in length. They all looked old, weather-stained: and I decided they were leftovers, stored there and abandoned, from some cabinet-making project in the years gone by. So, with one of the short pieces under my arm, I scrambled through the skuttle hold and descended the ladder.

The old man was sitting in the front of the fire, scratching in
the ashes with the end of his walking stick. As my feet hit the
floor he looked up. His eyes fastened on the board under my arm. He looked to me like he as going to have a fit or something.


"I was gong to make something, " I said, shifting my gaze from the old man's face to the walnut board.

"Make something!" shouted the old man. "That's a piece of my
coffin!"

I dropped the plank and mashed my big toe.

The old man didn't fuss, threaten or scold. All he did was to
look sort of hurt and tell me to take the board and put it back where I had found it. I backed away from the thing, refusing to touch it again: the first and only time I ever failed to obey the old man's command.

When the old man had struggled down from the loft, and had gone back to scratching in the ashes, he told me how he had, long before, set his heart on being buried in a coffin made from the lumber of a certain walnut tree, under which he had cooled himself through forty years. Then he told me the story of Benjamin Webb.

Benjamin Webb, a native of Wilkes County, North Carolina, was one of the first settlers in that neighborhood. He was a man of peculiar notions; and , it seems, he was a man of education above the average of his day.

Soon after he had settled in his new home, and while the wilderness still hemmed him in, his eighteen-year-old son, Nelson, was stricken with a strange malady. He made a stretcher of deer skins and with the help of several neighbors, carried the young man all the way to Baltimore, a distance of
more than four hundred miles. The doctors in the Maryland City shook their heads; and Benjamin and his friends carried him back home. He didn't live long; and he was the second white man to be buried in what is now Letcher County, Kentucky. His grandfather, John Adams, who died in 1815, was the first.

Many years before Benjamin died he employed an expert to make him a coffin. The old man (Jesse Adams) said it was a dandy;; a beautiful thing, made of carved black walnut and trimmed with polished brass.

I gathered from what the old man said that he had a mind to pattern Benjamin Webb's coffin, maybe better it, for himself. But I asked no questions, and he didn't say for sure.

The old man went onto tell me how Webb kept this coffin under the bed; and when company dropped in, he would drag it out, remove the lid, and live down in it to show them how well it fit. Sometimes, the old man said when the Webbs had over-night visitors and they were crowded for bed room, Benjamin would
haul out his coffin and sleep in it.

When old, Benjamin finally came to die, he made a strange deathbed request. He said that he wanted them to take up his body on the day when he had been buried seven years, or if the weather or other conditions would not permit on that day, to take him up the day he had been buried eleven years.

His folks promised to carry out his dying request; and at the exact hour on the very day the seven years expired, they dug old Benjamin up, removed the lid from the coffin, let all who would, see. They they sealed the coffin again, and lowered it into the grave for the second and last time.

Had you ever heard the story about the coffin or digging Benjamin up seven years later? I had never run across it til this week. What a story. Believe me, I will be on the lookout for anything else I can find by James Taylor Adams.

James Taylor Adams

The man who wrote the article about the dreams that Letty Adams had predicting deaths in the family wrote them in a column he wrote in the Kingsport Times called "Appalachian Tales." I wasn't all that impressed with the way he wrote that article. However, I found another that impressed me to the highest. I will print it tomorrow, but I wanted to find out more about the man.

I figured from the Adams name he was probably a relative, and he was. His father was Joseph Adams. He lost his father when he was young. When he was about 11 his mother remarried. Her second husband was Jesse "Colly Jesse" Adams. The article I will reprint is one that he tells about an encounter with Jesse when he was alone with him one day shortly after the wedding. You will find it fascinating.

In the meantime, I had started finding things about him and right in the middle of my research the computer died. The fan went out. It will not start again with the fan out to keep it from overheating. I have it in being repaired now. This backup computer is slow.

I googled Mr. Adams and found this on the Wise County Historical Society website which is

http://www.wisevahistoricalsoc.org/Historians/adamsaddington..htm

This is what they had to say about James:

James Taylor Adams was a prolific writer, a folklorist and a preserver of Appalachian culture. He wrote thousands of articles for magazines and newspapers of which only a few have been collected.

James Taylor Adams was born February 3, 1892, a son of Joseph and Mary Jane (Short) Adams. He was born in Letcher County, Kentucky and lived in Alum Cove, Little Colley and other small communities in Kentucky.

He moved to Wise County, Virginia while yet a young man. He married in 1908 to Dicy Roberts. They had a family of eight children. Among James Taylor's work was at the coke
ovens in Wise County, selling fruit trees; owned a grocery store; sold insurance, and owned and ran a print shop. He was a Notary and built houses to rent. He also established a post office at Big Laurel where he lived and was postmaster there. His wife Dicy also worked in the post-office. He built a Church house; built and ran a library to store his many books, manuscripts, and publications, and to distribute books for people to read. He also built a museum to collect and preserve antiques and old items.

James Taylor worked in the Works progress Association, (WPA). While working for the WPA he collected old songs and stories of the area and wrote them down to preserve. He became interested in family history and compiled the Adams Family history among others.

James Taylor only had a second grade education in the public schools but was a self educated man. He published several newspapers, some of which was The Vagabond Gazette, Adam's Weekly and The Cumberland Empire. He wrote columns for several newspapers, and Detective stories for Detective
magazines and wrote stories for some Canadian magazines under a pen name of Roland Rivers.

Among the books he wrote was one called "Death in the Dark," which is a collection of Factual Ballads of American Mine Disasters with historical notes. He also visited cemeteries of the area and compiled a book of the names and dates on the stones, with a short history of some of the people. The book is called, "Family Burying Grounds in Wise County, Virginia."

He and his wife and family moved to Arkansas to homestead land there, lived in Missouri, then back to West Virginia and finally settled on Rocky Fork at Big Laurel on Rocky Fork. He died in 1954 and is buried at the homeplace there.

James and I share a love of family history. We also share a birthday. I bought an Adams Family History back in the 70's. The name that comes to mind as an author was Dorothy Adams, but there was a man's name attached, too. I will have to get that book out to see if it were one of James'. I also bought the "Buryin' Book".

What an interesting man.

The story is a doozie about our g-g-g-g Grandfather Benjamin Webb.

James Taylor Adams writes about Benjamin Webb as told to him by Colly Jesse Adams

In researching Letty Adams and her dreams, I found another article written by James Taylor Adams.  He is a relative and so far, I know that he was born about 1899.  He wrote a column called Applachian Tales in the Kingsport Times News.  I plan to more work on him.  At this point I know his father was Joseph Adams.  I don't know his mother's name yet.  After Joseph died she married Jesse "Colly Jesse" Adams who was a second cousin to Joseph.  James was about 11 at the time.  His article starts out telling about Colly Jesse, who was about 80 and something that happened to him which caused him to tell the story of Benjamin Webb.  I am going to save that part til I have more about James Taylor Adams.  He was another keeper of the family stories.

On November 26, 1950 this is what he wrote about Benjamin Webb as told to him by Colley Jesse Adams:

Do Your Dreams Predict the Future?

John Hobbs Adams is my 5th great grandfather.  He was married twice, first to Nancy Caudill and then to Lydie "Lettie" Simpson.  Next in line was John and Lettie's daughter, Jane "Jennie" Adams who married Benjamin Webb.  Their daughter Lettie Webb married Archelous Columbus Craft.  Their son Enoch Arden "Chunk" Craft married Polly Ann Caudill.  Their daughter Lettie Craft married Joe Hall.  Their daughter Nancy Alice Hall married Otho Bentley.  They were my grandparents.

Jennie Adams Webb had a sister named Mary Ann "Polly" Adams.  She married William Green "Billy Grit" Adams.  William appears to be from a different set of Adams.  I have not found a connection between the two families although both families came from North Carolina.  They both ended up in Kentucky. They married on October 24, 1809 in Prestonsburg, Floyd County, Kentucky.  They had the following known children:

1811 John Wiley Adams
1815 Jesse G. Adams
1818 Simpson Evans Adams
January 21 1820, William Green Adams
1821 Sarah "Sally" Adams
1823 Mary "Polly" Adams
February 18, 1826 Spencer Adams
1829 Ellender "Nellie" Adams
October 6, 1831  Lydia Adams

The son, Spencer Adams, married Celia Church.

In 1850 Letcher County, Kentucky
Spencer 25, was a farmer.
Ceiley, 23
William G. 4
Margaret 1
All were born in Kentucky.

In 1860 Letcher County, Kentucky
Spencer 38
Sely 34
William 14
Margaret 11
Samuel 9
Joseph 3
Letty 2
All born in Kentucky except Sely who said she was born in Virginia.

1870 Letcher County, Kentucky
Spencer 45
Salah, 44
William 23
Marget 18
Samuel 21
Joseph 14
Letty 12
David 8
John 6
Jesse 2
Mary 2

1880 Richmond, Wise County, VA
Spencer 56
Cela 55
John 13, son
Green 36, son

The "dreamer" in this family is Letty.  She first married Shadrack R. Roberts.  He died in 1898.  He was a Mexican War vetran.  She was next married to William Mays.  She outlived him, too. 

Letty's parents and her grandmother believed that when you dreamed a dream something was sure to happen that would make you think of it at the very least.  She heard this, but paid it no mind until she turned 42.  She had the first of what would be a dream that would repeat in the future. 

In the dream she ws standing by an open grave.  Looking around the grave she saw her mother, her father and all of her brothers and sisters except Joseph.  No one else besides her parents and siblings were there.  There was no casket and no dead body.  Her father's family were just standing looking into an open grave.

The next night she dreamed that a relative came to tell her that her brother Joseph, who had lived some 40 miles to the north of her home, on Critical Creek, had died at eight o'clock that moming.

Five years later Letty dreamed the same dream again, only this time it was her father, Spencer Adams, who was missing from the family group gathered, in her dream, around the open, new-made grave.  The very next day she received word that her father had passed away.

Two years more and Letty dreamed again.  This time, it was her mother, Celia Adams, who was missing from the faming group, encircling the open grave. She was hardly through telling her dream when a message came telling of her mother's death.

As the years rolled on Letty kept experiencing the dream of the family group and the open grave; and always the one who was missing from the group died within a few hours, following the dream.

After her mother, it was her brother, John Adams, who lived in West Virginia; next it was her sister, Peggy Collins, in Kentucky; and then, finally, it'was her brother Rev. David Adams, also in Kentucky,

When Letty was 82 she had only one brother, Samuel Simpson Adams, left alive. In mid-winter 1941  of Letty Mays was sick with her usual winter cold. Despite her age, her children and grandchildren were not alarmed at her illness. She, herself, was taking her sickness lightly. Then on the morning of February 2 she awoke to tell her folks that she would not live the day through. She had, she said, dreamed that dream again; and this time she was not beside te open grave, but that she was floating away, as if on the wings of the wind, leaving her brother, Samuel Simpson Adams, standing there alone. And that was Letty Mays' last dream. She died at three oclock that afternoon.

I found this story told in a column called Applachian Tales by James Taylor Adams published in the Kingsfort Times News on Sunday, October 8, 1950.

Because she had the same type of dream over and over it was called a chain dream. 

Do you have dreams that come to pass?

Dorothy Mullins 1930-1981

I met a cousin through this blog. He wrote a comment, and I asked him to email me so that I could make sure his family was included. He wrote me another email and asked me about Dorothy Mullins. I didn't know her, but from the location I figured she had to be part of my Mullins family or one of the ones I had run into. He then sent me some more details and I was able to find her.

She is Dorothy Ellen Mullins. She was born May 12, 1930 in Letcher County, Kentucky. She was the granddaughter of Rebecca Hays who is my g-g grandmother. Rebecca was married to James "Jim" Mullins. He was the son of Old Booker Mullins. Rebecca and James had four children: John, Booker, Sarah and Joshua. Joshua was my great grandfather. Dorothy comes through Joshua's brother, Booker.

Booker was a farmer. He married Sarah Ann Adams. She was the daughter of Moses Adams and Elizabeth "Betsy" Adams.

Sarah Ann Adams & Booker T. Mullins

In 1900 Booker and Sarah were living in Whitesburg. He and Sarah had four children: Rebecca 11, Moses 6, Millie 3 and Charley 4 months.

In 1910 the census shows that Booker and Sarah had been married for 22 years. Sarah had had 10 children and only 6 of them were alive at that time. The children living with them were: Becca 17, Moze 14, Millie 13, Charlie 11, Susan 8 and Henry 4.

Booker died on February 8, 1919 of pneumonia from the Spanish influenzia.
Sarah lived until 1951.

Their son, Charles Buford Mullins married Bertha "Bertie" Sturgill who was later known as "Big Mother." They had three children: Cecil and two whose names were unknown to me though I knew one was female and one male.

From my cousins emails I found that the female was Dorothy Mullins. She was the second wife of William Stephen Long. They married on June 24, 1962 after his first wife, Rebecca Tolliver died.

William and Rebecca had James Keith Long as a son. He married Atha Delores Bentley who was the daughter of Willie and Edna Bentley. What a small world.

Dorothy and William had a daughter names Linda Lou. I am still searching for more information on this family, but I was so glad to fill in a blank for Booker's line.

Now the child that I did know about who was Dorothy's brother, was Cecil Mullins. He was born in 1923 in Letcher County and died in 1997 in Jefferson County. He married Margaret Loucille Johnson. I have two more generations but I assume that they are living so I am not going to print their names or anything since I don't know them personally.

Cecil Mullins

I was able to update this information because my cousin, Jimmy, a grandson of Uncle Willie and Aunt Edna, wrote to me. His parents are James Keith Long and Atha Delores Bentley.