“Do the best you can. No one can do more than that.” ~ John Wooden
ancestors and descendants
For years, Jennifer Adkins Reynolds, Pam Oldfield Meade, and I have discussed our shared great-grandparents, Benjamin S. (Sampson) and Suzanna Moonglow Hurst Hamilton. Family lore swears she was Cherokee, but we’ve yet to prove it to be true. We said one day we’d go find their graves. Today was that day. Born in 1761 in Bedford, Virginia, Benjamin (d.1846) fought in the Revolutionary War and, as was customary for the time, he was granted land for his service. In fact, most of Kentucky was parceled out as warrant land. I don’t know the exact year he was given the land warrant, but Jen confirmed that he served from 1780-1783, ending his service after the battle of Lookout Mountain as a spy against natives in the southern Appalachians. In 1792, in Hawkins, Sullivan County, Tennessee/North Carolina, Benjamin married Moonglow (b.1770, d.1845). As Jen said today, we’re hoping Moonglow became his wife because she wanted to. The couple travelled north and settled Moon in far eastern Morgan County on Paint Creek. You can guess who the town was named after. They had at least ten children, and thousands of Morgan Countians can trace their lineage to them. Pam is descended from their daughter, Elizabeth. She married Jesse Oldfield from Grassy Creek way. Jen is descended from their son, John. He married Mary May from Prestonsburg, Floyd County. I am descended from their son, David K. Hamilton. He married Drucilla Hill from roughly the same area in Morgan County. Although David and Drucilla migrated as far north as Lewis County, at least one of their children, Benjamin, named for his grandfather, returned to Coffee Creek, just over the hill from Moon. From there, my line did not stray until my grandmother married the second time and moved to West Liberty in 1934. To make today’s trip even better, we met Pam’s friend, artist and owner of Paint Creek Farms, Jerrica Dalton, pictured below. Benjamin and Moonglow’s cemetery is on her farm, and she was sweet enough to drive us across the Creek on her ATV to get to it. The nearby beaver dam had the water level a little too high to cross on foot. We came away making a new friend while checking off another item on the bucket list. The weather was perfect, and I think it’s safe to say a good time was had by all. Thank you, Jerrica, for making our day and giving us such a nice photo to document the moment.
girl gang
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