Remembering Moorefield’s beloved Barber, Jilson “Cap” Stone

C.C. Cole’s store at Moorefield in 1898—Pictured from left, are: “Cap” Jilson Stone, the local barber, Chester Craycraft Cole, George Lambert and Rollie Kirkland. This building burned in 1917.

George Perkins pushing William Dudley Judge in a wheelbarrow. William D. was born in 1917. Picture may have been taken around 1918.

In the late 1860s an African American settlement started on the edge of the village on the Moorefield and East Union Turnpike on the Sharpsburg Road.

The African American residents opened a school in 1873, which was used until 1930.

In 1905 an African American congregation organized and built a Methodist Episcopal Church.

In 1900 there were 140 African American citizens living in this settlement.

One of the most remembered and well-known African American citizens of Moorefield was Jilson “Cap” Stone.

In the spring of 1946 journalist Grimes Caywood wrote the following article about Jilson J. Stone’

“A record of the dates of deaths of residents of Nicholas County, started as a hobby more than 60 years ago by Jilson J. Stone, an African American Barber in Moorefield, Ky. and contains more than 2000 names. Miss Fannie Ring, a bookkeeper at the Moorefield Bank, copied the records from several well-worn books into a bound volume and regarded by the residents as a valuable historical record.

“Every few days some little boy or girl comes into the chop to find out when their grandparents died” Stone, who was 85 years old said.

Adults also frequently consult him about dates of deaths of members of their families and many friendly arguments have been settled through the record, which is accepted as positive proof.

Stone admits that he has not even attempted to record the deaths of all the persons who have died in the county or even in his own community.

Most of those recorded he says were his friends, and a few names of children are included in the record.

Dates of deaths of national leaders and prominent residents of Kentucky and the nation are included in the list, “but of course, I could not keep a record of all of them he said.

The first entry in the book was made in 1885 and the last April 13, 1946. Until 1890, he did not list the day and month.

The unusual chronology of deaths is no more remarkable and interesting than the historian.

Stone, known to virtually every resident of the county as “Jills”, has been a barber for 65 years and works at his shop in Moorefield every day.

“I am cutting the hair and shaving the fourth generation of white people of this community,” he said.

He was born Jan. 25, 1861 within a mile of where he now resides and has lived in the community virtually all his life.

Several times he left Moorefield to seek employment, but always returned after a short time and resume barbering.

His other work included two years as a roustabout on a Mississippi river freight boat, and employment as a tobacco packer at Louisville and returned home after three days” he said.

He was born a slave and remained with the Stone family for many years after the close of the War Between the States.

Although he cannot remember any of the events of the war, he recalled vividly the end of the conflict “When Moorefield boys came home”. With other children of the community, he said he stood, wide-eyed, watching a large number of Confederate soldiers, who had been mustered out, ride into Moorefield.

Fishing and hunting and music have been his hobbies, he said.

For more than 30 years he played with instructed brass bands, both white and black organizations at Moorefield.

He gave up music several years ago when “all the boys moved away or died”, but he continues to hunt and fish at every opportunity.

“Didn’t get to do much hunting last fall”, he said. “Shells are so scarce, and I just can’t get around like I used to. But my eyesight is just as good, and my aim is just as steady as it ever was.”

As proof, he asserted that during the past hunting season he shot at seven birds and killed six of them.

Stone is the oldest resident of the Moorefield section, but he is healthy and agile and looks to be at least 25 years younger than four-score and five years.

Several years ago, he severed an artery in his leg while chopping wood, and the accident left him slightly lame.

Although he had little education, the octogenarian has always been an avid reader and in his community is considered an authority on local and state historical lore.

He attended the first school for African Americans in Nicholas County, a school established in the early 1870s in an old log building in Carlisle that earlier had been used as a jail. “Ive learned a lot by listening,” he said.

He writes a steady, Spencerian script, with all letters legible and well formed and without the evidences of shakiness usually found in the writing of old people.

In addition to barbering, Stone also was a carpenter of sorts for many years.

His last job of carpenter work was four or five years ago when he helped to construct a large tobacco barn.

He proudly related how he had worked on the rafters and roof of the 28-feet high barn. “But I’m too old to be climbing around now I guess.”

Jill’s and his wife Mary, nine years his junior, reside in a little white cottage next door to the African American Methodist Church, about a fourth mile from his barber shop, which is next door to one of the villages two general stores.”

Stone died in Moorefield Mar. 4, 1950 and was buried in the Henryville Cemetery. Frank Weaver retained his record book.

Some of the village’s physicians have been Dr. L.K. Swango, Dr. L.B. Holmes, Dr. O.S. Kash, Dr. Clarence Kash, and Dr. W.H. Howe.

Ms. Clarine Crockett Higgens is one of Kenneth Lyons favorite former Moorefield citizens. She is 106 years young and is currently as resident at an assisted living facility in Rowan County.