The Iles of Moore’s Ferry

Iles Mill was a favorite place to picnic in the early 1900s. In the boat are Everett and Pearl Frizzell, the grandparents of local historian Brent Frizzell.

This week’s historical sketch takes us to Moore’s Ferry, a small village in the northeastern section of Bath County and the location of what was known as Iles Mill.

We know the Iles family was in the area as early as the late 1700s from an account written by Elijah Iles, who was 86 years old when he wrote, “My name is Elijah Iles, I was born in Kentucky, March 28, 1796. My father Thomas was born in Pennsylvania in 1765. At the age of sixteen he was sent by his father about one hundred miles to collect some money and was furnished with a good horse and a good outfit of clothing. After collecting the money, not being on good terms with his step-mother, he decided to set up for himself. He went to Virginia and emigrated to Kentucky with a family by the name of Trumbo. He then went to work for wages in the summer, and to school in winters, paying for his board by his work mornings, nights and Saturdays. When he got an education enabling him, he taught school in winter and worked on farms in summer. After occupying himself in this manner for a time, he married Betsey Crocket, and then formed a colony with my mother’s brother, John Crocket, and a few others, and settled on the Prickly Ash creek, on the waters of Licking river, in a heavily timbered section, and cleared ground for raising corn. They relied on game for their living, such as turkey, deer and bear. They could not raise hogs until the bear was killed out, as they eat the pigs. But they made good use of the bear by killing them and curing the meat as we do pork. At that day most everything used for housekeeping was brought from Virginia to Kentucky, on pack-horses. We had to do with little. Our tableware was pewter plates, spoons and Japanned tumblers. Our cooking utensils, a frying pan, skillet and oven; our bread was mostly baked on a board, set up before the fire, and called Johnny-cake, or in the ashes and called ash-cake, the meat often hung up and roasted before the fire. My mother, with her wheel, wool cards and loom, manufactured all the wearing apparel used by herself and family, other than buckskin pants, mostly used by men and boys. My mother died in 1802, leaving five children: Polly, Elijah, William, Washington and Betsey, the youngest eight days old. We were in a bad fix; but my aunts Carlyle and Harper of Woodford county, Kentucky, took my sisters and brother Washington home with them, and my Aunt Crocket, in the vicinity, took myself and brother William until my father visited his sister (Aunt Barnet), at Winchester, Virginia, and bought and brought home a black woman, and myself and William were taken home and put under her charge and care; we were taught to call her Aunt Milly, and to obey her; she proved to be a good woman. After living eight years a widower, my father married the Widow Wheeler, with two children (Samuel and Eliza); and my brother, Washington, and sisters were brought home. My education was limited; never advanced to study English grammar. My father, being a good scholar, taught me some at home in spelling, writing and arithmetic. At the beginning of the war of 1812, my father was sheriff of Bath county, Kentucky. I was then sixteen years old and acted as his deputy”.

Elijah’s brother William was born in Bath County, Ky on March 21, 1798 to Thomas and Elizabeth Crockett Iles.

He married Jane H. George and their children were Minerva, Thomas, Washington, Clarissa, Jane, Mary, William, Jr. and little boy who died when he was just two years old.

William purchased a mill that is believed to have been built at Moore’s Ferry around 1800 by a man named Morgan.

The mill was said to have been powered by a huge log dam across the Licking River with large timbers at the top bolted together.

In his book A History of Bath County, John Adair Richards states, “according to Jonathan Cassity, whose father, William Cassity, was one of the very earliest settlers in this section, there was in the beginning a large hotel, built and operated by Iles, situated on the Razor property at the mill site for the accommodation of guests and those from afar on business at the mill. And according to Jonathan, in the early days wheat and corn was brought by ox cart from as far away as Mt. Sterling and Winchester to be ground into four and meal. Iles also operated at this mill a sash saw for sawing poplar and pine rafted downstream by timbermen operating upstream. Because of these activities at the mill the hotel was a well-paying venture being filled with paying guests most of the time. After the death of William Iles, James Rice acquired the mill site and after operating it for some time disposed of it to a William Lightfoot of Owingsville who operated it with a Billy Richards as his miller, he and his wife residing at the old homestead and later it was operated by Thomas F. Razor. About 1912 it finally shut down and went out of operation. All that remains to evidence this historic spot and the activities carried on there during the early years of the county is an old blacksmith shop situated on the Razor property which was operated by Lightfoot, who employed an African American Smithy from Owingsville to do the work and an old stone buhr from the mill which line in the Razor yard. This stone will weigh around two tons, an immense rock, and is carved from red granite. It was related by Cassity that this stone was brought from a dismantled mill in Germany having been used there for many years before being brought here and was something over three hundred years old. In the early years of the county this whole section was like much of the others covered with a growth of fine timber, which however, has been felled, much of it by George Razor himself, who for some thirty years at this dam site operated a mill rafting much of the timber downstream. Again, according to Cassity, who received the information from his father, the cannon balls from the Slate Furnace, which were sent to Andrew Jackson at New Orleans, were hauled by oxen to this dam site, loaded on boats and sent downstream. While plowing in the bottom field at the dam site, Mr. Razor uncovered three 18 to 20-pound cannon balls which he placed in his yard alongside the old buhr but were stolen by vandals”.

William Iles died in January of 1846 during an attempt to rescue his children.

His death notice appeared in the Maysville Eagle newspaper and reads as follows: Mr. William Iles, a respectable citizen of Bath County was drowned in the Licking River, near his mill dam, by the accidental upsetting of his boat. He, together with his miller, and two of his children had just crossed the stream and made it to shore when the cable broke lose and the boat floated down stream and upset at the dam. Mr. Iles’, who was an expert swimmer, seeing his children struggling in the water, lost his presence of mind and sunk. The children were saved.