I can’t imagine a time when life was centered on what happened on the farm, but that’s just a sign of the times we’re living in. We have gotten too far removed from farm life and no longer appreciate the work previous generations did to stay alive and prosper. There was a time when EVERYTHING depended on the farm, it’s crops, it’s animals, and it’s workhands.
For instance, in perusing some of the newspaper clippings from past times, I came across one that involved a member of my family. Frederic Akard was the son of a German immigrant who came to America, supposedly having been kidnapped, and landed in the Lancaster County area of Pennsylvania, where the young Jacob Eckhart/Akard met and married his life’s love, Susanna Margaretha Latture. They eventually traveled down the valley of Virginia with the Latture familiy to the corner of what is now Sullivan County in Northeast Tennessee to an area near Scott County, Virginia that still has the family names on the roads. There Frederic meandered around and caught the eye of a young girl across the Holston River, whom he married, Peggy Cleek. And thus began a part of my family that settled in Scott County, Virginia before there even was a Scott County, VA.
In fact, land records show that Frederic bought land from a man named George Wilcox in 1807, a deed recorded in Washington County, VA at Abingdon says so. Scott County was formed about a decade later, and this portion of Washington County (south of Clinch Mountain) was located in the new county. Here’s a transcript of that portion of the deed:
Deed book 5, page 330, Washington County, Virginia (Abingdon)
“This indenture made the 20th day of [?] and in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and seven, between George Wilcox of the County of Washington and Commonwealth of Virginia of the one part, and Frederick Akard of the same county and state of the other part. Witnesseth that for and in consideration of the sum of three hundred dollars in hand paid to the said George Wilcox by him the said Frederick Akard the receipt whereof is herby fully acknowledged, the said George Wilcox hath given granted bargained and sold and by these presents do give grant bargain and sell unto the said Frederick Akard his hears and afsigns a certain tract of land lying and being in the County of Washington and State aforesaid, formerly surveyed and granted to Andrew McClelin by the state of North Carolina, containing one hundred acres, lying on the south side of the North fork of Holstein River, Beginning at a white oak tree on the side of a knob, thus winding west thirty poles . . .”
I love the way they made the first “S” of a double “ss” word look like an “f” back in those days. It makes reading difficult. But did you notice something? The land was formerly surveyed in a grant given to Andrew McLelin by the state of North Carolina! This land was actually in Virginia but North Carolina claimed it. Apparently, several parcels along the border between North Carolina (now Tennessee, whose statehood dates to 1796) and Virginia were “squabbled” over, and some called the area the “Squabble State” until the line was settled and the deeds were fixed. I love this stuff.
Anyway, an ad was taken out in a paper that looks like this:
Don’t you love it? Mathias Cleek was an in-law to Frederic Akard. The Cleek family lived on the Gate City side (would have been known as Estillville in those days) of the North Fork of the Holston River, along what we now call Wadlow Gap Road, real close to the river bridge. A stone chimney, or the remains of one, stands where the house used to be. John Anderson was high sheriff of Scott County and owner of the Block House Fort used by Daniel Boone and other early pioneers who traveled through the area, which was not far from Wadlow Gap Road up East Carter’s Valley. A replica has been erected over at the state park at Natural Tunnel in the county. I haven’t determined who William Skillern would have been, but he has “an estray cow” somewhere, who would be much older than 5 years now. If anyone sees it, would you return it so Cleek, Bounds and Akard can finish buying it? Bounds is a name I’ve seen a couple times in relation to the Cleek/Akard people. He was an early resident, that’s about all I know. The cow wandered off, or was she stolen? Was she a source of the family’s future calving enterprise? A milker? Why did they desire her so much? How much was $8 worth in 1813? Were there THAT many readers of the “Political Prospect” in what we now know as Scott County in that time?
I get excited whenever I find any mention of my relatives in old documents. This one sheds a little light on every day life. I can’t imagine what is was like then, but I do see a glimpse herein.
By the Waters of Possum Creek 