Mighty Small

This past Thanksgiving my youngest asked if I could drive her around Winchester and show her some of the places that I have been writing about in this blog. She wanted to see the land around 4 Mile Creek and where our Jones family had first come into Clark County (Winchester) some 193 years ago. Well of course I said no, just kidding, and we started our drive, just the two of us. Coming down Boonesborough Avenue where the welcome to Winchester sign had been [see post titled "One of 8,000]was our starting point. We came to the junction of Boone and Main and the Catholic Church still stood proudly. Granny Ewen's house stood just past the Catholic school to the south where I first saw the picture of great-granddad Ewen. [see post "50 Years of Genealogy']

We turned north onto Main Street, passing the church district where several still remained. Hickman Street School was no longer, as well as the Presbyterian church that stood by the alley just up from our church on Main Street. Our little Main Street Church of Christ was now owned by the Baptist. What a hoot, as they say in Alabama.

The Court House still stood with its four sided clock telling the time to all who cared to look. [see post "Ringing the Bell"] The steps to the east did not seem so high as I remembered.

We turned east onto Broadway and toward Vine Street. [see "part of my imagination"] Many of the buildings had changed, but the liquor stores still seem to be pretty much the same. The house where dad grew up, the Winchester Stock Yards, and several other landmarks were gone. How sterile I thought.

Turing onto Vine Street we past at least five new houses that had been built on Old Man Elkin's land. All faced Vine Street and made the yards look very, very small. All the fences were gone. [see the post titled "Fences"] We almost past 25 Vine Street before I recognized it. The shaped was the same, but there was a wooden front porch with wooden stairs that just didn't look right. All the shades were pulled and the house seemed sad and lonely. [see post "25 Vine Street", "Welcome to the Neighborhood", and "Our House in the Middle of the Street"] I wondered if the door markings where my brother and I measured our height every now and then still stood...four foot to five foot ten for me!

We then followed my bicycle riding path which Lenny (my best childhood friend) and I frequently navigated. Leaving Washington Street out Irvine Road we flew down the longest hill to what became the headwaters of 4 Mile Creek. Not much to look at today. My daughter commented "mighty small". I had to explain this was just the beginning and as we pressed on the creek grew until we crossed it on Logan Lick Road. Here we climbed to a ridge that divided the two northern most branches of 4 Mile. It was between these two branches that our Jones family first farmed and raised their children. You could not really see for all the brush and trees had grown. Coming down on the other side of the ridge, we followed the Muddy Creek Road branch that brought us back into Winchester. We totaled some 14 miles. Our Jones family travel these miles for some 193 years. I woundered what Nicholas would have thought. [see post titled "4 Mile Creek"]

Baptist

Nicholas Jones, the father of Thomas Jones, was the first to bring our Y-chromosome into Kentucky. He moved from Spotsylvania Co., VA, where he had been living since the close of the Revolutionary War. In 1811, he arrived with a fairly large number of family members (six boys), and settled initially in Fayette Co., KY. He joined with the South Elkhorn Baptist Church located close to the Fayette Co., Jessimine Co., line at the point that Harrodsburg Road now crosses South Elkhorn. This Church was the first congregation, of any kind, organized on the north side of the Kentucky River early in the fall of 1783. It had been gathered by Lewis Craig and constituted principally of members who had belonged to the Upper Spotsylvania Church. Some of our family must have immigrated to KY as part of this congregation since they originated from the same area that Nicholas Jones had lived. South Elkhorn became the "mother" Church of all Baptist Churches north of the Kentucky River. Lewis Craig was assisted by John Shackleford who started his ministry in Caroline Co., VA where our Nicholas was born in 1762. The Shackleford family obtained land on 4 Mile Creek in Clark Co., KY where Nicholas ends up moving to in 1817.

The records of South Elkhorn Baptist Church record that on the 4th Saturday, April 1817, that the following members were "dismissed": Nicholas Jones, Dorothy Jones, Richard Jones, Griffin Jones, William H. Jones, John Jones, Younger Jones, Griffin Jones, Elizabeth Jones, Permelian Jones, and Peggy Jones. Nicholas Jones with wife Dorotha, is recorded in the Clark Co., land patent book [book 15, p. 16], buying 50 acres of land on the waters of 4 Mile Creek. Who would have believed that our family started out Baptist.