| Deer Lick |
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| Clover Lick was a deer lick, where the deer came to lick minerals from the rock. The first bunch of red clover that anyone had seen in the area was found near a sulphur spring on the Roland Eversole farm. Oldtimers say that is how the creek got its name. ( 8 ) In early days, even in my parents' time, the Poor Fork was a snaking stream of bluish water, running deep and clean. It teemed with redeye, perch, bass and catfish, snagged by fishermen for the frying pan. It was the center of the settlers' lives. Grist mills, which encouraged the first growth, were run by Poor Fork waters. Swinging bridges were built for foot crossings. In winter, the river and the creek froze so deep you could drive a wagon and a team of horses across it and never crack the ice. Children skated on it in their shoes. Both the Poor Fork and Clover Lick produced raging Spring tides, which filled the bottoms and reached to the low-lying farms. When logging came into prolific virgin forest, Spring tides overflowed the river banks, picked up the logs and carried them to market down Pineville way. In the summer, preachers baptized their converts in either the Poor Fork of Clover Lick Creek. When the Louisville and Nashville Railroad was built in the early twentieth century, it was lais paralle to the river. So was the road from Harlan, 23 miles to the west, and to Whitesburg, 17 miles to the east. Poor Folk became the trading center for the people up and down the river. It had the river valley to itself until the coal boom came. An unparalleled building boom raised the new cities of Benham, built by International Harvester, and Lynch, built by U. S. Steel in 1917. They were on Looney Creek within three miles of Poor Fork. Long freight drags began hauling out the coal by the millions of tons. The town's name of Poor Fork was changed to Cumberland in 1926. By then, it was a growing city on the verge of its own boom. Numerous openings for coal mining now dot the mountain that holds the Poor Fook's watershed. The virgin forest is gone, cut in the lumber boom or cleared away for mining. Benham and Lynch have shrunk to hamlets. Cumberland's population stands at 3,600. The river, the creeks are shallow now, no longer teeming with fish. Seldom do the banks overflow as in the days of Spring tides, Mining has hurt the watershed. |
| _BRANSON ORIGINS_ |
| The Branson surname comes from England. It means " Son of Brand,"- local, of Branson, a township in the parish of Burton-onTrent, county Straford, England. Other spellings are Brandson and Braansoun. (1) Similar spellings found in the 1790 Maryland census are Branston, Bramson, Bramston, Bransom and Brason. Bransons also have been identified as French Hoguenots. In America, the name goes back to colonial days when three Branson brothers migrated with William Penn, the English Quarter leader who was named proprietor of Pennsylvania in 1681. Researchers have established Leonard Branson of Maryland as the father of our Hezekiah and Henry. A statement, handwritten in 1907 by Henry Branson's son-in-law and in the possession of one of his descendants, says that the Bransons were Scotch-Irish. It further states that they settled near the seashores in Charles County, one of Maryland's original counties. There, Leonard married Polly Gay who bore them two sons, Henry and Hezekiah. They then moved to Scott County, VA. (2) Other records point to Leonard Branson as the progenitor of this line. In those days, parents had a habbit of naming a son for his paternal grandfather and adding Junior. Henry Branson had a Leonard Jr. Harlan County census recordsof 1850 and 1880 show that Hezekiah was born in Maryland, which is listed as the birthplace of his parents. One researcher said that Leonard died there after Hezekiah's birth and before 1800. (3) The Maryland census of male persons 18 and over in 1775-1778 lists a Leonard in Charles County. (4) The 1790 Maryland census for St. Mary's County list Leonard and the older Henry. The 1800 census does not. This Leonard was born about 1765 in Charles County, Maryland. Records also show a Leonard in service in the revolutionary War, entering on May 25, 1778 for nine months. (5) We have no proof that this is our Leonard, although a descendant of Henry says that Leonard was a Revolutionary War veteran. " I also learned that leonard was badly injured in the war and that he lived to be a very old man." (6) The National Archives found no entries for a Leonard Branson who served in a Maryland unit durning the Revolutionary War. However, the Archives identified a leonard Branson of Virginia who enlisted on Sept. 14, 1778 in the 4th. Artillery Regiment, Continental Troops. This regiment, commanded by Col. Thomas Proctor, was assigned to Pennsylvania. Leonard's enlistment was for one year. The Archives found no pension or bounty land warrant applications for Leonard Branson. R.B. Caudill who made a hobby of tracing family lines of pioneers in Eastern Kentucky, said that after the Revolutionary War Leonard " returned to his home in Virginia from whence his progeny scattered." (7) He also would have had to return to Maryland, where our forebear was born. Three Maryland wills, dated 1769, 1770 and 1792, show a Leonard Branson as an heir. The wills, of John, John L. and Michael Branson respectively, were filed in St. Mary's County. (8) We have no proof that the Leonard Branson named in any of these wills is connected to our line. Leonard's only know children are Henry and Hezekiah, who established the Branson name in Harlan County, Ky. early in the 19th. century. Henry's descendants settled Perry and Letcher counties and became large landholders, farmers and busninessmen. Most of Hezekiah's descendants eventually moved to the Northwest. Page#2 " An eighth of the blood flowing in your veins came from your great-grandmother, and possibly a much larger proportion of your individual traits: Your sweet winning ways or your irascible disposition." _Gilbert H. Doane_ |
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