History comes to life during Dinner with the Departed

Col. John Fleming, portrayed by Greg Emmons, describes being gravely wounded by an Indian. Photos by Tisha Emmons.

On a warm October evening, a few departed souls showed up for dinner at the Fleming County Covered Bridge Museum.

One, Colonel John Fleming, Rachel Stockton and a gentleman by the name of John J. Dickey stopped by to remind the guests, that they had once enjoyed the social activities of the town.

And since they had been gone for many years, well, Mrs.Shella McKee Gill had the idea they needed some freshening up and could surely use some of her Avon Products, so she crashed the party too.

Mrs. Shella, known county wide as “The Avon Lady”, believed that a great salesperson never gives up!

After each guest finished their meal, they were greeted by the lively spirit of Col. John Fleming, portrayed by Greg Emmons, who happens to be a direct descendant.

“Good evening, good evening, it’s a joy to see so many of you here tonight. Some of you may know my half-brother, George Stockton. He said we should name this town after me. My name is John Fleming and I came here to talk a little about my life. I was known as a very kind and passionate man. I loved to play the fiddle, I loved music and I loved to dance. But I also loved Irish whiskey…..Aye, I say, is there any whiskey in the house? I wasn’t just a social drinker I drank a lot. I was born in 1735 to William and Sarah Keith Fleming, who were both from Ireland.

I lived all of my childhood in Pennsylvania. My mother would always tell me there is danger in the forest, savages, but I was just a child and loved adventure, I was not fearful of savages. After my father passed away my mother moved us to Virginia.

My mother married Robert Stockton and that union gave me several half-siblings including George Stockton. I was very fond of my half-brother William. It was William who gave all the land to this area, but there was just one condition, that the town and the county be named in my honor and I also have a creek named after me; Fleming Creek. So, I am indebted to my half brother.

In the year of 1776 my brothers George and William, William McClary and a man named Samuel Strode, and I set out on an adventure to find some land McClary intended to claim. We traveled down the Ohio river and landed at Salt Lick Creek in what is now Lewis county.

Now you need to remember my brother George had been taken by the Iroquois when he was a child. After many years he finally escaped. He knew the lay of the land, the trade and the tricks of the Indians and how they marked the trees for trails. McClary used George as a way to get to Kentucky. We made our journey to the out-skirts of Fleming by way of Crain Creek and we found the area that McClary had settled some years back.

William and I had felt this was not where we needed to stay and maybe we needed to explore more so we decided to explore over on Hinkston creek, what is now Nicholas County. We traveled around to Limestone creek and Mill creek in Mason county.

I met a great man at Limestone, his name was Simon Kenton; a great leader and very brilliant man, so I stayed with Kenton for some time. I decided this is where I needed to find land. My brother and Strode, they went back to Pennsylvania, McClary went back to let his family know he had found his settlement and brought his family back to live on his claim.

At that time the state of Virginia passed the Virginia land law, it was a wonderful deal. The state said you could get 400 acres for two dollars and a half providing you do one of three things; you could live for one year on the land, or you could raise a crop of corn. If you built a homestead, you could claim a thousand acres. So I built a homestead. By this time it was the 1780s and I had married the love of my life, her name was Lucy Pettit Dobbs. Lucy’s husband had been killed by Indians. My mother had always said be careful while walking in the forest, never walk under the land, walk on top of the ridge because over the brow is where savages lurk, and lurk they did. In 1782 the savages were all around. One such savage was Chief Blue Jacket, a bitter, bitter man who hated the skin of a white person. Death to a white person was Blue Jackets day in paradise. It was during the time my wife and I were staying at Strodes Station and my half-brother George had returned that the Indians had stolen some horses and taken a couple of children from Hoys Station. One night a band of men rode up to Strodes Station and asked us to join them in their pursuit of the Indians. Michael Cassidy was among the party of men and it was he who saved my life when I was gravely wounded after being shot by an Indian at a place you know today as Battle Run.

After I healed, I returned to the station I built in Fleming County.

By this time there were three stations in Fleming County; Stockton Station, located where the Stockyards are situated. The large two story house by the stockyards still has some of the original lumber from Stockton Station, the barn down by the spring has some of the original lumber as well.

I built my station as if you were on the ridge on the Mt. Sterling road, and you could look across and you could see the rock quarry. Across the road, from where the entrance of the quarry is where I built my station.

And then last was Cassidy, it was ironic that Cassidy built his station out on what is now known as Energy Road or Cassidy Pike.The farm is owned by Darrell Grannis and its ironic because Cassidy”s station overlooked the farm owned by Greg Emmons. But guess what they made it a triangle, equal distances apart, between Fleming, Stockton and Cassidy Station, because it was a safer distance to travel.

By the this time, Flemingsburg and the towns between the stations began to grow.

My lovely wife Lucy and I had three sons; William who was a doctor, John, a farmer and Thomas a merchant. I became a master surveyor and surveyed most of Martha Mills. I was very pleased to know my sons had become very successful and all three stayed in Fleming County.

I passed away at my station and at that time you could not mark a grave because the savages would dig up your body and mutilate it, so the exact location of my burial place has never been known. If you go down the old Crain Town Road and turn on Martha Mills Road, towards Fleming Creek, there is a small cemetery on the left where John, William and Thomas are buried. I think I am there too, but there is no record.

And so, that is a little about my life, I am glad to have been invited to talk with you tonight, and now must bid you goodbye”.

As Col. Fleming’s spirit faded away, Mrs. Rachel Stockton(Charlotte Benton) made her way into the room.

“Well hello, I’m surprised to see so many of you out tonight, away from the confines of the station. I would think you would be worried about Indian attacks. And those clothes, they look so different from what I am used to seeing and what about these things they call cars, where are the horses? I’m surprised to see so many buildings here and the roadway, it looks so odd and strange to me. Everything looks different from when my husband and I would drive our horse and buggy to town. My husband is George Stockton, and I am Rachel Dorsey Stockton. After he named the town after his brother John Fleming, the area became a county, they named it after him too, he already had a creek named after him. I think George should get some credit too. After all he was one of the first men to settle in this area.

Mrs. Rachel Stockton, played by Charlotte Benton,

spoke about being married to George Stockton.

I guess I should tell you a little about me before we get back to the subject of my husband. I am the daughter of Edward Dorsey of Ann Arundel County, Maryland. I’ve been told I come from a well-established family. I married George Stockton in 1775.

My husband descended from the Stocktons who were from Ireland. His father Robert came to Pennsylvania with his parents, brothers and sisters. Robert removed to Virginia around 1750. He became a justice of the peace, and a judge of the county court. He and his wife Sarah had three children; Robert, Isabella, and George. George was born January 20 1745. Sarah had been married before, to a Fleming, perhaps William, Johns father. I really didn’t know much about Johns family. My George was said to be a giant of a man about six feet tall, and possessed an enormous strength and vitality. He and his sister Isabella were both captured by a band of French Indians around the beginning of the French and Indian War. They were carried north to the vicinity of Detroit.

George remained with the Indians throughout the war and became so fond of Indian life that he lost all desire to go back to a white civilization.

Finally in 1766 after the return of peace, he accompanied an Indian hunting party into Pennsylvania and took the opportunity of visiting his parents in Virginia. His intended short visit was prolonged by his mothers request to stay, until he finally settled down permanently. George and I married in 1775. I think because he had lived with Indians is what gave George a sense of adventure, he wanted to see what people like Daniel Boone and Simon Kenton were talking about and the land that they had explored. So he, John Fleming, William McClary and Samuel Strode, left in the spring of 1776 to explore the wilderness of where we are today.

They returned to locate the farm sites and George put up a cabin by a big spring and they decided to make Georges cabin the headquarters, probably because it was built better than the others.

George decided to return to Pennsylvania and didn’t return to Kentucky until around 1782. He went back because he had heard John had been seriously wounded at a place you call Battle Run. George had been busy providing for his family and fighting in the Revolutionary War.

Later he moved us to Union Town Pennsylvania to be near his sister Isabella and William McClary then on to Morgan Town Virgina. This time when he went back to Kentucky he was accompanied by an old friend, Michael Cassidy. George surveyed about 1000 acres of land in Ky.

In 1787 George and I came down the Ohio on a flat boat to Limestone and then to the area where he had built his first cabin so many years before and we began our new life. Another child was born in our family, Dorsey Stockton, the first child born in this county on March 3, 1787.

Although our station was never attacked by Indians they were constantly on our minds. We tried to make sure no one left the station alone and we kept our animals close. However, as cautious as we were, no one could have foreseen the ultimate tragedy a mother should bear.

In 1789 my oldest son Robert went hunting with Beecham Rhodes on Fox Creek. They were surprised by Indians at their camp and my Robert was killed. Rhodes was severely wounded but he managed to crawl back to Fleming Creek over a seven day period. There a group of hunters found him and brought him back to our station. A group of men set out immediately to find Roberts body , they found him unscapled and still guarded by his faithful dog, which had made a deep path around his body from constantly circling to keep off the wild beast. They buried him there on site in an above ground grave, which I understand still stands today.

Now before you think that all we did was fight Indians, please know, we worked hard to grow crops, we had marriages and babies and worshiped the Lord. My husband became a justice of the peace for Mason County

He was also a Major in the County Militia and when Kentucky became a state George served as Representative 1794 to 1795.

More and more people began to settle in this area. In 1798 Mason County recognized this and ordered that a town be established. So George made a motion that 268 acres be purchased from John Field to be established as a town. Now if you look at the description of the town you will notice that it is one- half mile from our station. I wanted that done. You see, I had a peach orchard and I didn’t want the town any closer because I was afraid people would come in and do damage to my orchard, especially bad little boys. I wasn’t around to see the growth of the town of Flemingsburg. I died on September 21, 1798 and was buried in the Stockton Cemetery across from the station. We Stocktons left our mark on this town and I am proud that I was able to help shape the beginnings of Flemingsburg.”

Dr. John Jay Dickey (Chris Beckham) was born in 1842 to William and Malinda Dickey in Craintown/Cloverhill area of Fleming County.

He was a teacher, a preacher, historian and a writer. Dickey is credited with helping to start the school at Jackson, Kentucky which became known as Lees Junior College as well as helping to establish Sue Bennett Junior College.

As John J. made his way across the room, he looked over at some items displayed on a built-in bookshelf. “Well look what a handsome devil depicted in some of these photographs. What a lovely beard I sported in my younger days, well low and behold those are my old glasses, I don’t think my prescription is the same” Dickey remarked before addressing those in attendance

“Oh and here is my book of poems, “Thoughts In Rhyme”. I think I would like to

Chris Beckham reads a poem written by

Dr. John Jay Dickey.

share one of those with you this evening, but before I get to the poem, maybe I will tell you a few things about my life you may not know”.

“I don’t like to talk about myself, I don’t think that’s the Christian thing to do. Never the less, you all have come so far, have enjoyed a lovely meal, and maybe you will humor me and let me tell you some of the things I have been able to do. I grew up in Crain Town. I was born in 1842 on May 7. I went to the schools such as they were in our community. As I grew older I had the rare opportunity of going to college.I left the state for a while and went to Ohio Wesleyan University. Then after two years I returned to Elizaville and began to teach school on my own in that community. But I wanted to get a little bit more education so I left Elizaville and went to KY Wesleyan college in Winchester. I finished my bachelors degree in 1873. Along the way I had become a very spiritually minded person and had attended a revival meeting here in Fleming County at the Clover Hill Methodist Church. George Smith was the Pastor. It was at that time that I became a Methodist Pastor. I joined the Kentucky Christian Methodist Episcopal conference in 1876. I filled a pastorate at Washington Hebron for a couple of years and then I moved closer to Lexington. But as it sometimes happened in those days, I became unable to preach because of my health. I had to resign my pastorate and took a couple of years off. While I was recuperating I wasn’t quite ready to return to the pulpit so I went to the mountains of eastern Kentucky.

I went to Jackson and as I got to know the people of that community, I realized they were almost completely bereft of any kind of formal education. There were a couple of elementary schools, but they were not strong and they were not in good shape so I began to investigate the possibility of starting a high school. In fact it was a dream of mine that we would have high schools in every county seat in Kentucky. But it was a long time before that dream was realized. I had the idea that the young men that were educated in Jackson could go on to college in the Bluegrass area and come back to their smaller communities and start schools and spread the dream of education throughout the Commonwealth. In other words education would come full circle.

I didn’t think I would stay in Jackson for very long, but my horse turned up lame and I had to stay two more weeks but that turned out to be a good opportunity for me to do some work in education. I decided I would start a school. So, I found a partner, his name was R.A. Hurst, he himself had been a teacher and an attorney. We started a school in the county courthouse, and we had 51 students show up for our first session.

Along the way I met man named Anson G.P. Dodge while in Jackson. Dodge was the son of a more famous man, William Dodge, who was a congressman from New York. Mr. Dodge was also a billionaire and a philanthropist. I had some conversation with him and shared my dream of starting a schools all throughout KY. The Dodges became interested after several conversations. I promised Mr. Dodge that if he would take care of the materials side of founding a school, I would supply the intellectual and spiritual work in training the young men and women that would attend. Eventually the school we started became the Jackson Academy which later became Lees Junior College, and today is known as Hazard Community College. I resigned from my work in 1890 as principal and took over as the Editor of the Jackson newspaper. I enjoyed writing for the newspaper and continued that work for 4 years. But I had a bad habit of telling things that maybe I shouldn’t that seemed to offend some very wealthy people in the community for reporting on some of their activities. One day after I left, the newspaper building was blown up. I then decided it was time leave the mountains and go home. I went back to Flemingsburg in 1901. I decided I was finally old enough to settle down, and at 59, I got married. My wife’s name was Ida. Ida was 20 years younger than I, she was a remarkable woman, she was very involved in education, she worked as a missionary and was a deacon in the church, her family had roots in Fleming and Nicholas County. I became active in the seminary after I came back to Fleming county, and then one day I was hit by one of those model ts in Maysville and was in the Hayswood hospital for a long time. Eventually I healed and was able to return as a Pastor at Central Church in Maysville. Time went on and in Flemingsburg I continued to do what I could to increase the educational opportunities of our citizens .I started a column in The Fleming Gazette called Notes on the Sunday School Lesson. I wrote columns about Fleming County history. I started a literary society, a precursor to the library which met in the old Episcopal Church, where the current Pizza Palace is now. We had quite a little library for our community in that building. We conducted meetings where individuals could tell stories about our counties history, present papers or to borrow some of the books that we had. At one time we even collected clothing for people who were suffering during WWI. When the literary society had to come to a close, I took all the books that we had and I donated them to the Fleming County High School. As I began to age, I became more interested in writing down my thoughts. I wrote a book of poems and in 1931 I just turned 90 and my poetry book was published. I would like to leave you with the poem I wrote at the tender age of 80 I hope you enjoy”.

Mrs. Shella McKee Gill, played by Carla Doyle White, talks about educating people on their driving, as the safest place for her to travel was the middle of the road.

The Avon Lady” (Carla Doyle White)

When Mr. Dickey finished reading his poem, all of a sudden the room filled with the sound of footsteps as someone quickly made their way up the stairs.

“Well I thought there would be someone to introduce me, I guess I don’t get an introduction. Now, some of you know a little about me since they conjured me up at the Hillsboro cemetery a few years ago. As you see, I brought some of my Avon books in case someone may be interested. I am Shella McKee Gill, I am affectionately known by the people of Fleming County as Miss Shellie, and also as the Avon Lady by people who didn’t know my name, but knew me by my driving habits.

I was born in 1893 near Locust in rural Fleming County.

My daddy was William and my mamma was Bertha Ann Saunders McKee. I had a little sister but she died. So I was my parents pride and joy believe you me, did I say that I was t their pride and joy? There was nothing that I wanted for, they loved me they adored me, and I adored my parents, they were just so wonderful.

A lot of people thought I was just an old maid. You know I wore my signature braid around my head, you know, kind of like a halo, so people just thought that because I was so pure and righteous looking that I had never been married. But I was married twice….the first time I was married I ran off with Mr.Winter and we were married at Mammoth Cave but I don’t think mamma and daddy really knew about that one. Sadly, he was one of those men who had a wondering eye, if you know what I mean, and he had just wandered one too many times so I just had to divorce him. Well, later I ended up getting married to Mr. Gill, he was just a sweet fella. I thought everything was fine but he just kind of went to Nicholas County one day and I never heard from him again. We never got divorced but we never got back together. He died before I did but they didn’t mention me at all in his obituary, but if you read the one Miss Plummer has here at the museum, you will see my obituary says I was his widow. I don’t know why he didn’t want to stay with mamma, and daddy and me.But I forgive him is all I can say.

I was actually born at Locust but after a few years we moved to Hillsboro. The house is still there, and as you go toward the cemetery and around the sharp curve you can see it. I have wonderful memories from there. One of the things I loved so much growing up and as an older woman too, was my peonies and roses, they were just such delight care for. And I had a little kitten named Sweetie that I just loved and of course I wanted her to have the best of food to eat…..well you know I would ask for scraps from the grocery stores here in town when they would cut meat. But of course being the fine woman that I was it wasn’t proper for me to haul the scraps in my car, so I just ask my neighbors to do it for me. Well, I helped educate people on their driving. I thought that the safest place for me to travel from town to Hillsboro was the center of the road, and these young drivers coming toward me, well they had to learn how to get around me. As a matter of fact, as I drove in to town tonight, while parking I had to squeeze in a little close to a silver Lexus. Oh, I hope I didn’t hurt it too much, but I know you will forgive me, but of course you wont be able to reach me when I go back up to Heaven. I guess being one of the most illustrious people in Fleming County, is the fact that I have been the Avon Lady for 53 years, For 53 years I sold Avon Products so I can tell people how to be a sales person. You just stay there, you don’t leave. If you just stay there they have to buy something. Just like the time I was going through town and Chief Toby was directing traffic, because the stoplights were out, and I was driving through town, of course on my center line. I stopped and said Officer Toby I want to sell you some Avon, and he was motioning for me to go on and I said no, I need to sell you some Avon before I go on. So he said, if you will just go on and come to the office later I will buy Avon from you! I did go to his office and sure enough he bought some Avon.

Then there was the time I was out to Hillsboro and while I was at this one house I was sure I heard voices inside, but when I got closer everything got quiet. So I knocked on the door, nobody answered, then I knocked on another door and still no answer. I tried to look in the windows but the shades were all drawn. I thought, well I’m just going to investigate. I went walking around the house and I peered behind some bushes and saw this little door. Well I wondered if this was a way into the house. I turned the knob and sure enough it opened into a little passage that led inside there was another little door. I opened the door and to my surprise there was some people in the kitchen, boy were they surprised to see me. They said, we didn’t know that door was there. I told them, well isn’t it a good thing I found it for you! Guess what they did buy some of my products too. So you gotta be persistent, don’t give up, you out last, no matter your age. Speaking of age, don’t I look good from using my products, I died at 99. One of the other things I was known for is I played the piano at the Methodist Church out to Hillsboro. I was a good Methodist. Do you know what I tell people I would be if I was not a Methodist? Well if I wasn’t a Methodist I would be ashamed of myself.

Now, I do want you to buy some Avon products before you leave. I will be standing at the door so you will have to get by me in order to get out. I am just so glad to be able to stop in and visit again.

Oh, and just one last thing, I can give you some Heavenly prices on some of my Avon Products.”