SHORT STORIES

Submitted by: Sharon M. Kouns

Ironton Register, Thursday, August 28, 1890

EDITOR REGISTER. This place gets its name from the father of our old and long-trusted auditor, whose home was in this community for a number of years. This is one of the pleasant farming communities among the hills of this county. It was here in this community that old father B. F. Wakefield reared his large family and sent them out upon life’s mission. Two are now in Missouri, one in Kansas, one in Marietta, and five are here in this community. Of the five in this community, two are the wives of well-to-do farmers, Messrs. C. and H. Forgey; and the one named for himself, B. F. Wakefield, has the old homestead farm; the other two of this community Miss Cora and J. D. Wakefield, are in the old homestead with their mother. Miss Cora is one of our efficient teachers, and J. D. is studying for the medical profession. The two in Missouri are successful farmers, the one in Kansas is a mechanic, doing well, and the one in Marietta is the wife of a professional man. To rear as large a family as this and see them taking hold of the duties of life and making an honorable record for themselves, is, to your correspondent’s mind, the greatest achievement allowed to man. Who can conceive of the possibilities to be reached by the members of such a family! Let them choose the God of their father, and He will lead them. Old father Wakefield was one of the number who secured the erection of old Windsor Chapel here on the hill. While Allison was building old Oak Ridge furnace, and the democratic party was bending its energies to put James Buchanan into the White House, father Wakefield with others was striving to secure a house in which to worship God. "Mark the perfect man, and behold the upright, for the end of that man is peace." C. Forgey has two farms under his control-his own here in this community and the late M. Forgey’s, up on the river above Labelle; hence he would, if possible, make two men out of himself, and he can come as near doing that as the next one. His oldest son, Jesse, has just returned from the South, and comes in to make his father’s efforts a success on that score. Mr. Forgey’s mother is still living, and is an active lady yet although she was born in 1800. Corn does not seem to look as well here as it does in other parts of the county, still these late rains are bringing out the corn everywhere, and they will make thousands of bushels of corn in this county that would not have been if the rains had been withheld two or three weeks longer. David Kitts has added to his real estate by the purchase of another farm lying on the top of the hill between his home and Proctorville. It is only six or seven miles from here to Proctorville, yet the people have to cross more hills to get to the river than the people of Marion have to cross to get to Ironton. Peter Dillon who now owns the farm formerly owned by Winchester Wakefield, has built himself a commodious residence on the opposite side of the creek from where the Wakefield residence stood, that was burned down several years ago. The old grist and sawmill that formerly stood near where the residence stood, is entirely gone, and the field that constituted the log way for the mill is now covered with waving corn, so that the "lay of land" is all that is left of the Winchester Wakefield homestead, as known some years ago. These are some of the changes that old father Time is constantly making in our midst.
STANTON.