Adjutant Levi J. Hampton
Biography
Levi J. Hampton, like his brother William, was a remarkable man among the old pioneers at the Mouth. He came along about the same time,and led, as long as he lived, as busy a life as did William. He was a man like Miles Standish, of wonderful force of character and determined will. He lived for a while in Brown County, Ohio, where he married Elizabeth Henderson, a lady of intelligence and great force of charcter, and, like her other six sisters, who all married men that became prominent in the higher active business pursuits of life, she was lady who filled the relations of wife, mother, friend, and neighbor with a luster of undimmed brilliancy. Mr. Hampton, soon after marriage, came back to the Mouth of Sandy, which was about 1845 or '46, and even after made the place his home, being some time engaged in timbering, timber-dealing, general trading, and hotel-keeping.
He was man of ardent temperament, and when he made up his mind to do any thing, he did it with his might. While he was a strong Whig in politics, as most of the old settlers of the Mouth were, he was equally ardent in his devotion to Souhern institutions, and on hearing of the struggle going on in the Territory of Kansas between John Brown, leading the Free State party, and Stringfellow at the head of the pro-slavery or Southern host, Mr. Hampton rushed to the scene of conflict and identified himself with the Southern side. In the struggle, John Brown and his party gained some advantages over the side Mr. Hampton was on, and, seeing it was necessary for his personal safety, he retired from the field and hurried to his home, being shortly after pursued by agents of the then dominant party in Knsas, who demanded his immediate return to Kansas to answer a charge made against him for some offence committed when in the conflict. Mr. Hampton's friends and neighbors gathered about his person and determined that he should not go with the posse unless they could show that he was a violator of the laws of the Territory. As they left without taking Mr. Hampton with them, it is presumable that his offensing was more technical than real.
His business affairs, however, suffered by this episode in his life, from which he never fully recovered. But he would, no doubt, had he lived a few years longer, have again come to the front in business prosperity. It is a little epigrammatic that while contending for Southern rights in Kansas, when the cry of secession was raised in the South, he raised his voice against the cry and declared for the old flag. He enlsited in the 39th Kentucky Regiment Volunteer Infantry in 1862, was appointed quartermaster, and, being in charge of some stores for the command stationed above on the Sandy, when near Prestonburg, he was fired upon by the enemy, and was killed, bravely fighting to the last. Mr. Hampton was always a warm friend of education, and desired above all things to see his children and neighbors' children have provided for them the means to obtain not only a common- school education, but a training only to be obtained in the higher academies, and hence, by word and means, he did much to start Catlettsburg forward to the high position she attained many years ago as an educational center. Mr. Hampton left a widow, five daughters, and one son. The widow died one year or two after his untimely taking off..... ..in 1850 he built the fine brick mansion now owned and occupied by Robert J. Prichard as his residence...Mr. Hampton sold the place in 1854..
Source of information: The Big Sandy Valley, pp. 173-177, by William Ely .