Remembering the town of Yale
Sunday School class at Yale, 1932. Allie Hunt is in the back row, last one on the right. George Ellington, Sunday School teacher. Photos courtesy of Debbie Hunt Cochran
If you were born after the 1970s you may not know that below the waters of Cave Run Lake, there was once a thriving little community.
Years before there was boating, camping, swimming and fishing, farms and families dotted the land.
Debbie Hunt Cochran cherishes the memories she has of growing up in the town of Yale and is the daughter of Allie and Irene Hunt.
“The community of Yale was located in the southeastern corner of Bath County, bordered by the Menifee County line and the Licking River. In 1913, when Yale Lumber Company sold out and left the area, all the equipment was shipped off, the remaining lumber was sold and the company houses were disassembled and shipped to Morgan County to be rebuilt in a lumber camp there. The land that was owned by the mill was given to Malvie Johnson, whose husband had been killed in an accident in the mill a few years before. Eventually, my grandfather bought the land from her, and when dad and mom married, they passed it on to them. My family lived on the farm until I was 12 years old, and we had to leave due to the construction of Cave Run Dam. I loved the community of Yale! I have so many wonderful memories of living there”.
Very little is known about early history of the town, but based on the notes of Thomas Franklin Gill, Samuel Gill was one of the first pioneers of the area.
Samuel Chriswell Gill, son of Captain Thomas Gill, was born in the state of South Carolina on November 22, 1783.
On September 23, 1807 Samuel married Sarah Malone, the daughter of Jonathon and Mary Malone, who were originally from Tennessee, but settled in Montgomery County Ky.
The young couple were very poor, their entire stock of goods consisted of one bay pony, eleven dollars in money, and a feather bed.
They packed all that they possessed on the back of the little pony and went into the mountains where land was cheaper and settled on Licking River in Bath County.
Samuel is said to be a “far seeing” man and early in life possessed the genius of making money.
He foresaw that he was in a pretty good part of the country and that it would not be long before there would be more people hunting for lands in that region.
He knew that these people would be very poor and the first thing they would create would be a demand, for bread, which gave him the idea to build a mill.
Some mountaineers had already constructed a brush dam across the Licking River and had obtained sufficient water power to run a small pair of burhs.
These crude burhs were of Kentucky stone and thought to be hammered out by an old man named Tom Donathan, who was a rough-stone mason.
Gill paid 50 dollars for the mill site and immediately went to work to construct a log dam, cutting all the timber and hauling the logs to the river himself.
As was one of the customs of the times, the neighbors helped him raise the mill house and put in the dam.
To the intense delight of the neighborhood, the little mill was soon grinding corn and Gills Mills were born.
Samuel supplied lumber to the surrounding countryside and rafted it downstream where he found a ready market.
He acquired a 500 acre homestead, and several tracts of timber in the area.
During his years at Yale, he served at a Justice of the Peace of the County Court and Sheriff in Bath County.
Samuel and Sarah had 13 children together. Sarah died December 22, 1847.
He then married Elizabeth Reed in 1849 and in the same year he moved to the Fleming County side of the river where he lived until his death in 1854.
As a result of all the pine, poplar, oak and other timber, logging and lumber industries came to the vicinity which resulted in the establishment of the town of Yale.
Two large mills were set up and 250 men were engaged in felling, sawing and curing lumber for the Yale Lumber Company and the Sterling Lumber Company.
In its glory days Yale had a post office, several large mercantile stores, two blacksmith shops, two grist mills, a saloon, two hotels, a barber shop, restaurants, the Alum City Oil Company and the Little Dinky Railroad.
Today, the town of Yale is but a memory that lives in the hearts of its former residents.
Town of Yale circa 1910. Photo courtesy of Bud and Allie Hunt
Mynhier reunion at Yale. Calvin Hunt standing with his cousin Walt Mynhier. Facing the camera at right is Ted Mynhier. The little guy in overalls is Jimmy Hunt.
