The Mouth of Red River

Finding our Jones Family Cemetery where Mam maw had told me many years before was completing a quest. At the mouth of Red River, she said. The picture to the right is my attempt to show the junction of the Red River to the Kentucky. It is drawn to scale with north being directly to the top of the page. Red River is of course colored red! It runs almost due east into the mountains of Eastern Kentucky. Up this river went my Ewen side, to settle along what is today called Ewen Creek. The Kentucky River is colored blue, and you can tell the snake like twists and turns that meander out of the mountains to the east. The distinctive "bend" just at the mouth of Red River is where the Jones family cemetery is located. This is called Maupin Bend on Kentucky maps of today, but it was Jones land at the start. The drawing also shows the relationship of the three counties that make the junction of Red River to the Kentucky River. North is Clark County. Southeast is Estill County. Southwest is Madison County. All three counties played a role in uniting many of my family members...Jones (Clark County, Madison County), Henderson (Madison County, Estill County), Ewen (Clark County, now Powell County), and Monroe (Clark County). All where around the mouth of Red River.

Silent Slumber

It was October 1993, that my Dad and I finally got to stand before the grave of William Carter Jones. We had been trying to find this family cemetery for some twenty years. The mouth of the Red River was not accessible by road, and we had a difficult time trying to find out who owned the land. At the time W.C. lived here, the water was the highway. The Kentucky River and the Red River joined, and at this point, you could put a canoe in the water and head down stream to the Ohio River. The road crossed here, between Clark County and Madison County, and the Kentucky River was shallow enough that you could cross here in a buggy. Today, with the TVA and flood control, the River is damned, leaving the road no place to go but underwater. At the end of state road 977 [called Cain Springs road], at the very last gate to the right, is the access point to the grave yard. You can see a grave yard just inside the fence from the road, but this cemetery is not it. It is known as the Skinner Cemetery. You have to get out of the car and walk about 1/4 mile further around the bend until you see the Jones Cemetery. Half way up a gently slopping hill, facing the Kentucky River, is a 20 ft. by 20 ft. wrought iron fence. There are four graves in this plot.... Robert Allen Jones, b. 27 Feb. 1856, d. 3 Feb. 1894...Charles B. Jones, b. 17 Dec. 1867, d. 24 Oct. 1877...W.C. Jones b. 20 Oct. 1826, d. 4 Feb. 1902. There is also an unmarked headstone. The headstone of W.C. reads : "Peaceful be thy silent slumber"